The women’s golf team will try to improve on a fourth-place finish at the first tournament of the season when it travels to Franklin, Tenn., to compete in the Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship this weekend. The Crimson Tide was able to recover from a 10-over-par first round at the Dale McNamara Fall Preview with a 2-over second round, which moved the team from 11th into a tie for fourth, where it remained through the final round.
Seniors Stephanie Meadow and Hannah Collier both played well the last time the Crimson Tide competed at Franklin’s Legends Golf Club, in Sept. 2011 when the team finished second. Last week, Meadow carded a 4-under-par final round to finish in a tie for second, two shots behind tournament winner Kyung Kim of Southern California.
“I hit a lot of greens, had a lot of opportunities for birdies,” Meadow said. “I didn’t capitalize on some of my opportunities for birdies, so I’ve been working a bit on my short putting and keep working on my swing.”
Junior Daniela Lendl played the best tournament of her college career shooting 1-under-par to finish in a tie for sixth. In her 11 starts with the team, Lendl had never finished better than 12th. In addition to her first top-10 finish, it was Lendl’s first sub-par tournament as a collegiate golfer. However, the two newcomers in the tournament, transfer Janie Jackson and redshirt freshman Cammie Gray, both struggled in their first events as members of the Crimson Tide. Gray’s scores were dropped for all three rounds, while Jackson played well until carding a 7-over 77 in the final round.
“We have a lot of really talented girls on this team, so I don’t think that’s going to be a trend,” Meadow said.
The Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship is one of the most prestigious events of the fall golf season, attracting some of the top teams in the country. Competitors include No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Arizona State and No. 9 Vanderbilt. Meadow said the team needs to work on their fundamentals in order to bring home a victory this weekend.
“We made a lot of silly mistakes as a team,” Meadow said. “If we can just make some putts, take it one shot at a time, not get ahead of ourselves … hopefully we can get better at that by this weekend.”
The tournament will tee off Friday in Franklin, Tenn.
