MEDINAH, Ill. — Following a slow start, the Georgia women’s golf team shot 6-under in the home stretch of the final round at the Illini Invitational on Tuesday. The No. 22-ranked Bulldogs completed play at historic Medinah Country Club at even-par 864 and tied for sixth on the team leaderboard.
“The ending was kind of what we’ve done all fall,” head coach Brewer said. “There was a lot of good golf and a lot of good decisions. We didn’t start well, but we were able to rally and learn about ourselves. I think we’ll handle situations like today better going forward.”
Kate Song led the Bulldogs on Tuesday with an even-par 72. Georgia’s remaining counters were a pair of 73 from Caterina Don and Napat “Jenny” Lertsadwattana and a 75 from LoraLie Cowart.
Overall, Don led Georgia with a top-10 finish for the third time in as many tournaments this fall. The fifth-year senior wrapped up play tied for ninth at 4-under 212. She also finished ninth and eighth at the Cougar Classic and Windy City Collegiate Classic, respectively, and is a combined 19-under over nine fall rounds.
Additionally, Cowart tied for 19th at 1-under 215; Lertsadwattana tied for 40th at 220; Isabella Holpfer, who shot 76 on Tuesday, tied for 47th at 221; and Song tied for 54th at 223.
Georgia began the final round in third place but was 11-over on the day midway through the back nine before Don, Lertsadwattana and Song combined to notch nine birdies the rest of the way. With that, the Bulldogs extended their streak of par-or-better team tournament tallies to three events. The Bulldogs are now a combined 30-under on the season.
“It’s been a year or two since we found ourselves in the final group going into the last round,” Brewer said. “I think it says a lot about our new nucleus, the returnees and the newcomers, and how far we’ve come. You need days like today in sports to realign yourself and discover things you need to work on and clean up. We’ll learn from being in the position we were in today, and I’m confident we’ll handle ourselves better the next time we’re there.”
Led by co-medalists Latanna Stone and Ingrid Lindblad, No. 13 LSU also captured the team title. The No. 13 Tigers finished at 27-under, nine shots clear of the field. No. 8 Ole Miss was the runner-up at 846, followed by Northwestern at 850, No. 11 San Jose State at 854, Oklahoma State at 860, the Bulldogs and No. 20 Houston both at 864, Ohio State at 866 and Alabama and SMU both at 868.
The Bulldogs will wrap up their fall campaign next weekend when they compete in the Stanford Intercollegiate on Oct. 20-22.