ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia’s Caterina Don and Candice Mahé tied for second place at the Lady Bulldog Invitational on Sunday. Both golfers finished the 36-hole event at 1-under 143, two shots off the pace of medalist Kaleigh Telfer of Auburn.
Mahé closed with a 3-under 69, while Don covered the UGA Golf Course layout at even-par.
They headlined a strong showing by Georgia, with all eight Bulldogs finishing among the top 25 and five notching top-10 efforts. In addition to Don and Mahé, Isabella Holpfer and Jo Hua Hung tied for fifth, Zoë Walker finished ninth, Céleste Dao tied for 17th, Caroline Craig tied for 20th and Alison Crenshaw finished 25th.
It’s a great way to start the season and to me it gives us a good head start before we play our first team tournament in two weeks,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “It’s so much better than qualifying, which is what we would have done this weekend. At least now people have tournament rounds under their belt. You have an idea of what people can work on, but also what they’re doing really well.”
With a shotgun start, Mahé began her round at No. 3 with a bogey but recorded six straight pars to reach the turn at 1-over. She got hot on the back side with birdies at No. 10, No. 12, No. 14 and No. 17 to move to 3-under before parring the final two holes to complete her loop.
Don’s day began at No. 1. She bogeyed No. 1 and No. 4 but birdied No. 5 to regain one of those strokes and turn at 1-over. On the back side, Don bogeyed No. 10, birdied No. 13 and bogeyed No. 16 before closing with birdies at No. 17 and No. 18.
Hung also fired an under-par effort on Sunday, shooting 71 for her team-leading 10th par-or-better scored in 14 rounds this season.
Georgia will begin the team portion of its schedule in two weeks when the Bulldogs travel to Duran Golf Club in Melbourne, Fla., to compete in the Columbia Classic.
“We have one more round of qualifying, but our games look pretty good,” Brewer said. “If you look at our scores on a championship golf course and against some of the better competition in the conference, I’d say we’re in good shape. Now it’s just maintaining that and continuing to have that mindset to work and get ready to try to get our first win of the spring and second win of the season.”