After a string of disappointing seasons, the Georgia Lady Bulldogs returned to national prominence last year, largely due to the arrival of three talented freshmen, two from metro Atlanta.
Georgia won five tournaments in 2015-16, including its NCAA Regional, and finished the year ranked 13th in Division 1 after missing the 54-hole cut in the NCAA Championship.
The Lady Bulldogs return all but one of the team’s front line players, including sophomore Bailey Tardy of Peachtree Corners, who was ranked ninth nationally as a freshman. Tardy won a tournament in Chicago and tied for first in Georgia’s Regional appearance, added four other top-5 finishes and ended the year with a 72.06 scoring average.
Fellow 2015-16 freshman Jillian Hollis was the individual champion in Tucson, was fourth in Regionals and finished the year ranked 46th in the country. Roswell’s Rinko Mitsunaga, the third of Georgia’s trio of standout freshmen, also scored a tournament victory in Athens and was ranked 100th nationally at the end of the Spring season.
Also returning to the starting lineup is senior Harang Lee, who had six top-10 finishes last season and was ranked 26th nationally.
Competing for the fifth spot in the lineup is junior Isabella Skinner of Cumming and senior Mary Ellen Shuman of St. Simons Island, who both saw action in about half Georgia’s tournaments last season. Shuman closed out the season in the fifth spot, playing in both the Regionals and NCAA Championship.
Georgia opens its Fall schedule Sept. 6 at Berkeley Hills in Duluth in the Cardinal Kickoff, an event hosted by Louisville. Courtney Swain Trimble, Louisville’s coach, is an Atlanta native and has scheduled a season opening event in the Atlanta suburbs for a second straight year. Georgia also makes Fall starts in Orlando, Chicago and at Stanford, defending its title in Chicago.
Augusta returns a trio of three-year starters, but the Lady Jaguars don’t have much experience behind their three returning starters. Augusta enjoyed another solid season in 2015-16, finishing among the top 50 teams in the country, winning its home event at Forest Hills for the first time and qualifying for Regionals.
Eunice Yi of Evans was the team’s top player last season, ending up just outside the top 100 nationally. Yi had four top 10s and led the team in scoring average at 74.1. Roswell’s Jessica Haigwood won in her first collegiate start as a freshman and has been a key contributor since for the Lady Jaguars, recording four top-20s and a season-best T7 in Augusta’s victory in the 3M Invitational.
Augusta’s third returning starter is Josefine Nyqvist, who won an event hosted by Kennesaw State at Pinetree and had six top 20s on the season.
The Lady Jaguars also open their Fall schedule in the Cardinal Kickoff and play four other events in 2016, three in the Carolinas.
The emerging team among Georgia’s Division 1 women’s golf programs is Mercer, which returns all five starters from last season. The Lady Bears won a tournament hosted by Florida Gulf Coast and had a number of other solid showings.
Leading the way are sophomores Mary Janiga and Payton Schanen, who both scored tournament victories as freshmen and were first team all-Southern Conference selections.
Janiga scored top-10 finishes in her first three starts last Fall, including a win in North Carolina. Schanen, from Alpharetta, won Mercer’s Spring opener in south Florida to lead the team to its victory, and played consistently throughout her freshman season.
The other three returning starters are juniors Hannah Mae Deems of Taylorsville and Jaelyn Tindal, and senior Marin Hanna of Moultrie. Deems and Hanna both closed out the team’s season with their best finishes of the year in the conference championship.
The team has added one of the state’s top junior golfers — Lauren Lightfritz from Lambert in Forsyth County. Lightfritz will look to follow Schanen and Janiga and make a major contribution as a freshman.
Mercer plays three Fall tournaments in South Carolina and one in Missouri before concluding its 2016 schedule with a home event at Idle Hour.
Georgia Southern, in just his second season of fielding a women’s golf team, has added freshman Julianna Collett of St. Simons to its roster, while Georgia State has two Gwinnett County freshmen on its otherwise all-foreign roster – Harmanprit Kaur of Lawrenceville and Grace Choi of Buford. All six players listed on Kennesaw State’s roster are from outside the U.S.