SUGAR GROVE, Ill. – The Alabama women’s golf team battled wind, rain and bone-chilling temperatures on Friday and finds itself in 21st place at 40-over par after the first round of the 2017 NCAA Women’s Golf Championships at the par-72, 6,343-yard Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.
Steady rain throughout much of the round, coupled with temperatures hovering in the mid-40s and winds gusting up to 20 mph, resulted in a tough day for the entire field on Friday. Northwestern (300) leads at 12-over par. Kent State (303) is second at 15-over par. Ohio State (311), Arizona State (311), Stanford (311) and Baylor (311) are tied for third at 23-over par.
“This golf course would be a lot of fun to play on a nice day,” head coach Mic Potter said after the round. “It was not fun today. It was grind and we didn’t do a good job of grinding. Sometimes you just have to take bogey and go about your business. We made too many doubles. We came up here three weeks ago and played in pretty similar conditions in a tournament in Chicago so I felt we were well-prepared for a day like this. But this is a very challenging golf course and we’ve got to do a better job of managing ourselves. We have a lot of holes left and typically we get better as the tournament goes along.”
Sophomore Cheyenne Knight (78) and freshman Kristen Gillman (78) were the low finishers for the Crimson Tide as they both finished at six-over par and are tied for 34th place, six shots off the lead, entering Saturday’s second round. Sophomore Lauren Stephenson (85) is tied for 110th at 13-over par. Junior Lakareber Abe is tied for 117th at +15-over par. Senior Mia Landegren (+17) finished at 17-over par and is tied for 126th.
Alabama will again be paired with Stanford and Florida in Saturday’s second round and will begin play at 7:30 a.m. CT from the first tee.
