Women head to Southland Conference tournament
4/14/2014 7:53:00 AM | Women's Golf
The 13th annual Southland Conference Women's Golf Championship tees off Tuesday at the High Meadow Ranch Golf Club in Magnolia, Texas.
The 6,258-yard par 72 will be hosting its first Southland tournament.
This year will mark the second time the Southland women's golf that the championship will be held at a truly neutral site.
Lamar has won the most Southland tournament titles with four followed by Sam Houston State with two and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi with one.
The SHSU Bearkats, who tied with Oral Roberts in last year's tournament, will be led by 2013 second-team all-conference selection Nicole Budnik.
The sophomore from The Woodlands, Texas, averages 77.79 strokes in 28 rounds.
Sam Houston junior transfer Alisa White has produced the team's low scoring average this year. The Hereford, Texas, product has a 76.11 stroke average in 10 tournaments and has helped the Bearkats to one team title this season.
Lamar has the highest conference Golfstat ranking entering this season's tournament. Last season, the Cardinals entered the final day of the championships down four strokes before rallying for a seven-stroke win
Houston Baptist and UIW will be playing in their first Southland Conference championship. The Huskies are led by junior Rachel Mulkey, who averages 76.31 strokes per round in 10 tournaments. The Cardinals are paced by freshman Jamie Bibby, who has a 77.92 stroke average in 25 rounds.
UIW, which is not eligible to earn the Southland's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament during its transition period from Division II to Division I, will be participating in this year's tournament unattached. If the Cardinals were to win the event, the team finishing in second place will move on to represent the Southland in an NCAA regional.
The conference tournament is slated to tee off Tuesday at 8 a.m. Pairings are based on team seeding, which is calculated using the Golfstat rankings. Players will play 18 holes of golf Tuesday and Wednesday before playing the final round of 18 holes Thursday at 7:30 a.m.
Ten Southland universities field a women's golf team: Central Arkansas, Houston Baptist, UIW, Lamar, McNeese State, New Orleans, Oral Roberts, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Live scoring for the 2014 Southland Conference Women's Golf Championship will be available at www.southland.org.
