All eyes in the world of women’s collegiate golf will be
focused on the Kampen Course on the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex
at Purdue University, the site of the 2003 NCAA Women’s Golf
Championships, from May 20-23.
No. 12 UCLA took to the links in the opening round Tuesday,
finishing in fifth place with a one-day total of 26 over par.
The Bruins trail first-place USC by seven strokes after day
one.
Sophomore Charlotte Mayorkas had the Bruins’ best round on
Tuesday, firing a three over 75 on the difficult Kampen Course.
Mayorkas is tied for seventh place entering the second
round.
Freshman Susie Mathews stood up to the pressure of competing in
her first NCAA Championship, shooting a four over par 76 to tie for
10th place in the tournament.
Junior Hana Kim shot a six over par 78 and is now tied for 23rd
entering Wednesday’s round.
The tournament fields 24 teams, including 15 of the top 20 teams
in the country that qualified during the NCAA Regional.
The course is playing to a par of 72 over 6,300 yards, and the
format calls for 72 holes of stroke play over four days, with the
lowest four scores counting toward the overall team score.
The course features tall heather rough, waste bunkers and
several ponds in an environmental conservation area.
The Bruins are utilizing the same lineup that competed in the
Pac-10 Championships and the NCAA West Regional. Earlier in the
season, coach Carrie Leary was looking for someone on her team to
raise her game and emerge as a leader.
Charlotte Mayorkas, the No. 8 golfer in the nation, responded to
Leary’s challenge and is looking to cap her successful season
with a strong run in Indiana.
Mayorkas leads the team in scoring average, top-10 finishes,
sub-par rounds and tournament wins after claiming first place at
the Arizona State University Invitational.
Mathews enters the championship with some late-season momentum.
Second on the team in scoring average, Mathews finished in a tie
for sixth at the NCAA West Regional, where she fired a final-round
four under par 68, her best recorded score.
The play of Kim has also come on of late, as she has recorded
top-11 finishes in three of her last four events.
Kim’s fifth place finish at the Pac-10 Championship was a
career best.
Juniors Melissa Martin and Gina Umeck round out the five-woman
squad in Indiana. Martin and Umeck each have the experience of
playing in two NCAA Championships, the most on the team.
In the 2001 NCAA Championship, Martin and Umeck had strong
performances to lead the Bruins to a fifth-place finish, the
highest finish under the four-year tutelage of Leary.
The last and only UCLA team championship in women’s golf
came in 1991 in Columbus, Ohio.
The 2002-2003 women’s golf team has four days to see if
it can add a second championship to the trophy case.