By Daniel Taylor | Reporter
No. 4 seed Baylor women’s golf is set to tee off in the Big 12 Championship event on Thursday morning at the Clubs at Houston Oaks Country Club in Hockley. The Bears are looking for their second-ever Big 12 Championship.
Baylor finished in a tie for second place the last time it played in Hockley in 2022. The Bears have risen 23 spots in the rankings over the past month.
Head coach Jay Goble said his squad is in a solid spot heading into the tournament. Goble said he’s confident due to the success of two years ago as well as the groove his group is in as of late.
“[Houston Oaks] is a course we played very well two years ago,” Goble said. “I think our team has really been moving in the right direction in the last month or so. We played well at Arizona State and then again at Dallas Athletic Club last week. I really believe that everyone’s game is peaking at the right time.”
The Bears shot under four in the final round of the Arizona State Invitational and finished sixth on March 30, and they also shot under 12 and had a first-place finish in the Veritex Bank Texas Showdown on April 8 in Dallas.
Senior Rosie Belsham enters this tournament having earned Big 12 All-Tournament recognition two years ago when the Bears played at Houston Oaks. Belsham will play at the No. 1 spot this weekend, and she said she feels comfortable with this course due to its resemblance to Ridgewood Country Club — one of the Bears’ practice or qualifying courses in Waco.
“If you have a tough shot or something, you can think about all the good ones you’ve hit at Ridgewood and draw off that,” Belsham said. “It helps you feel like you’ve played it before even if you haven’t.
“I think I’m the only one to have played Big 12s there, but a few more of us have played there. And with it being like Ridgewood, I think it gives us a lot more experience.”
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Freshman Ashleen Kaur, a Houston native, is set to play at the No. 2 spot while junior Sara Hasegawa will play at the No. 3, with junior BaiMai Seema and sophomore Silje Ohma rounding out the rotation in the No. 4 and No. 5 spots, respectively. Freshman Yoonjeong Huh will fill in as the Bears’ alternate for the Big 12 Championship.
Kaur grew up near this course and leads the team in scoring birdies or better 20.1% of the time.
Hasegawa has three-straight top-10 finishes, and she’s second on the team in getting a par-or-better, achieving this at a rate of 80.4% on 414 holes over the course of the season.
Huh had seven starts this year and finished in a tie for 14th at the Veritex Bank Texas Showdown in Dallas.
The Bears are set to tee off on Thursday morning, and the final round on Saturday will be available to be streamed on ESPN+.
