STANFORD, Calif. — Competing in a field with seven top-15 ranked schools, the Georgia women’s golf team finished eighth at the Stanford Intercollegiate on Sunday. The Bulldogs closed with a 1-over 285, climbing two spots on the team leaderboard with that effort.
Freshman Caterina Don and sophomore Jo Hua Hung led Georgia in the final round. Don signed for a 2-under 69, while Hung posted a 1-under 70. The Bulldogs also counted sophomore Jenny Bae’s 72 and freshman Céleste Dao’s 74.
“Today was our best round of the tournament and our best round of the fall,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “As coaches, you like seeing your team getting better as the tournament progresses. We had contributions throughout the lineup this weekend. It was a great day for us as a team and definitely should give us some momentum to get us prepared for the Bahamas in two weeks.”
The Bulldogs will wrap up their fall campaign at the inaugural White Sands Invitational in Nassau, Bahamas, on Oct. 28-30.
Don notched her fourth par-or-better loop in eight rounds this fall. She teed off from No 10 with Sunday’s shotgun start and birdied No. 10, No. 12 and No. 14 to quickly move to 3-under. Don turned at 3-under, but gave back two of those strokes with bogeys at No. 2 and No. 5 before rebounding with a birdie at No. 7.
Hung began her loop at No. 11 and played the final eight holes of the back side at even by posting six pars, a birdie at No. 16 and a bogey at No. 17. A birdie and No. 1 and a hole in one at the 166-yard No. 3 pushed her to 3-under on the day, but she double-bogeyed No. 8 before closing with a pair of pars.
“I’ve never had one of my golfers have a hole in one in 17 years of coaching,” Brewer said. “It was pretty neat.”
Overall, Bae and Don tied for 23rd in the individual field after shooting 3-over 216. Hung tied for 40th at 291, Dao tied for 62nd at 225, Caroline Craig tied for 74th at 228 and Kelsey Kurnett, who competed individually, tied for 83rd at 232.
No. 5 Arizona State closed with a 5-under 279 to win the team title at 10-under 842. The Sun Devils finished five shots ahead of No. 1 Stanford. Rounding out the top-10 teams were No. 3 Southern Cal and No. 10 Arizona both at 848, No. 14 Oregon and No. 7 Florida both at 856, UCLA at 867, the Bulldogs at 869, San Jose State at 874 and Washington State at 875.
“This weekend was sort of a microcosm of what we can and want to be as a team,” Brewer said. “Caterina has a resume that world class, but we know that from No. 1-5 we have golfers who can shoot at or under par every day. That fact should continue to help us build even more confidence.”
Stanford’s Angelina Ye fired a 5-under 66 on Sunday to capture medalist honors at 10-under 203, three strokes better than Arizona’s Vivian Hou.