Women?s Golf Looks for Solid Showing at Pac-10 Tournament
EUGENE, Ore. ? The championship season begins Monday for the Oregon women’s golf team when it travels to Somis, Calif., for the 2004 Pac-10 Championships. Saticoy Country Club will play as a par 72, 6,405-yard layout and teams will play 18 holes each day Monday through Wednesday. Live scoring will be available for the Pac-10 Tournament at www.golfstat.com.
"We really have no expectations," said Oregon coach Shannon Rouillard, whose team struggled in its most recent outing last weekend. "We just want to go play the game like we’re capable of playing it and refocus as we prepare for regionals."
Unlike recent seasons, five of the six golfers Oregon will send to Saticoy have championship experience. Only freshman Kim McCready, who has a 78.0 season stroke average, will be making her Pac-10 debut. Junior Johnna Nealy has had the most success among the group headed south. The junior from Grants Pass, Ore., tied for 12th at last year’s event, shooting a 226 at Trysting Tree in Corvallis. Nealy comes into the tournament with a 76.9 season average.
The remainder of the UO contingent will be sophomores Therese Wenslow, Erin Andrews and Michelle Timpani and junior Jess Carlyon, who will compete as an individual. Andrews leads the Ducks this season with a 76.0 stroke average with Wenslow close behind at 76.4. Timpani is fifth on the team with a 78.4 season average, but has come on this spring with three top-25 finishes in four events.
As usual, more than half the field is ranked in the nation’s top 25. Host UCLA is the No. 2 team in the country, with No. 4 California, No. 9 USC, No. 11 Arizona, No. 13 Washington and No. 23 Stanford also among the nation’s elite.
"This tournament is the best competition we will see all year until the regionals," said Rouillard. "And even though we’re not putting any pressure on trying to finish in a certain spot, you do always want to play well at your conference tournament. It’s a feeling of pride and respect when you’re out there competing against the rest of the conference."
California won last year’s Pac-10 Tournament at Oregon State, a first for the Golden Bears. The Ducks finished a disappointing 10th, five strokes behind ninth-place Oregon State. The Ducks haven’t finished in the upper half of the conference since taking fifth in 1997.
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