The Alabama women’s golf team’s season came to a disappointing end Sunday as it failed to qualify for the match play round of this year’s SEC championship at the Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.
The tournament’s story appeared to be bogeys and higher scores erasing the work that the team was doing in creating opportunities with birdies.
“We are very disappointed not to qualify for match play,” head coach Mic Potter said. “We had our chances today but kept offsetting our birdies with bogeys or higher.”
The tournament’s story appeared to be bogeys and higher scores erasing the work that the team was doing in creating opportunities with birdies.
Alabama was even able to notch the third-most birdies out of all teams with 42. Ten came from senior Elina Sinz, who recorded a 61st-place finish and a score of 16 over par (77-77-72). The team seemed to get in her own way due to the inconsistency that higher scores created throughout the tournament.
Senior Sarah Edwards was the Crimson Tide’s highest-finishing golfer on the player leaderboard, racking in a 23rd-place finish. This was the second top 25 finish in the SEC championship of her career. Edwards wrapped up the tournament carding a 5-over-par 215 (71-69-75). She also had an average score of 4.00 on par 4s during the tournament, the fifth-lowest average at the tournament.
Freshman Kaitlyn Schroeder also had a memorable tournament, having an excellent final round that propelled her 19 spots up the player leaderboard to a 30th-place finish. She finished her first career SEC tournament carding a 7-over-par 217 (73-76-68). Schroeder had a 2-under-par 68 finish on the final day, good for the sixth-lowest score of the day.
Freshman Harriet Lockley ended the weekend with a 40th-place finish. She ended at a 9-over-par 219 (71-73-75) in her first SEC championship appearance.
Sophomore Taylor Kehoe had a consistent showing for Alabama, finishing the tournament with three very similar scores during her three days of competition. Kehoe carded a 14-over-par 224 (75-75-74). This was good enough for a 57th-place finish on the player leaderboard.
The tournament itself featured no shortage of formidable participants with 13 teams competing that were ranked in the top 40 in the country, including eight inside the top 20 and four inside the top 10. This made the margin for error extremely low for Alabama.
“We just can’t make the mistakes that we made and expect to compete with the quality of teams that make up the SEC,” Potter said.
The NCAA regionals will begin May 6, and the NCAA championships will tee off May 17 in Carlsbad, California. Alabama will have to wait until April 24 to see if it made the cut for regionals.
