ATHENS, G.A. — Two home events and tournaments from coast-to-coast headline the 2015-16 Georgia women’s golf schedule announced by head coach Josh Brewer on Friday, July 3, 2015.
The Bulldogs will host a pair of home events – the Lady Bulldog Individual Invitational in February and the 44th annual Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic in April. Georgia will also compete twice in South Carolina, with additional trips to Atlanta, Chicago, Stanford, Puerto Rico and Arizona.
“This schedule is going to take us to all parts of the country and time zones,” Brewer said. “We’ll play in the Southeast, but we’ll also go to the Midwest and Arizona and California. As we expand the number of (NCAA) Regionals, we have to be prepared when the postseason comes to play in all time zones and different conditions. When the NCAA field is announced next April, we’ll be ready and a big reason for that is the mix of this schedule. It has a great balance with some of the top tournaments in the country. We’re going to see a lot of top-10 teams, but we’re also going to compete against plenty of teams ranked in the 15-35 range. That should help us.”
Georgia opens the season on Saturday, Sept. 8, when the Bulldogs compete in the University of Louisville’s Cardinal Kickoff. The one-day, 36-hole tournament will be contested at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Ga.
The remainder of the fall slate features four relatively traditional events on Georgia’s schedule. The Bulldogs will play in the College of Charleston’s Cougar Classic and Vanderbilt’s Mason Rudolph Championship in September as well as Northwestern’s Windy City Collegiate and the Stanford Intercollegiate in October.
Georgia christens the 2016 calendar by hosting the fourth annual Lady Bulldog Individual Invitational on Saturday, Feb. 6 at the UGA Golf Course.
The Bulldogs will compete in the Lady Puerto Rico Classic and the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate before traveling to the Mountain View Collegiate in Tempe, Ariz. for the first time ever.
The Liz Murphey completes Georgia’s regular-season slate and will once again feature a format similar to the NCAA Championships, with single day or stroke play qualifying followed by two days of match play competition. Stanford, the 2015 NCAA Champion, competed in the consolation bracket of the Liz Murphey earlier in the spring after finishing 10th in the 12-team qualifying round of a stacked LMCC field.
The Bulldogs will begin the post season at the SEC Championships on April 15-17 at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. Georgia owns a league-high 18 combined team and individual SEC Championships in women’s golf.
NCAA competition features four Regionals on May 5-7 in Shoal Creek, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Bryan, Texas; and Stanford, Calif. The NCAA Championships will be held on May 20-25 at the Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore.
Senior Manuela Carbajo Ré and junior Harang Lee lead eight returning letter winners from last year’s team. Georgia will also welcome a celebrated trio of recruits among the top-11 golfers in the Golfweek/Sagarin junior rankings for the Class of 2015 – No. 6 Bailey Tardy, No. 10 Jillian Hollis and No. 11 Rinko Mitsunaga.
“I’m very excited about this season,” Brewer said. “Our returning players have been busy and playing well this summer, better than they did last summer. Our three incoming players all have had very good 2015s, which I expected. I think everyone knows that it’s going to be important to work hard and be prepared or you might find yourself in Athens more than you want during the season.”