Golfers Open Spring in the Swamp
EUGENE ? The No. 44-ranked University of Oregon women’s golf team kicks off its spring season this weekend in the University of Florida’s Lady Gator Invitational, Friday-Sunday, February 22-24.
SIZING UP THE FIELD
The Ducks will join 14 other teams on the Mark Bostick Golf Course for the three-day, three-round event. Host and No. 5-ranked Florida is one of seven teams ranked top 50 in the field, including No. 13 Wake Forest, No. 29 Louisville, No. 32 Georgia State, No. 35 North Carolina, No. 39 Augusta State and No. 44 Oregon.
Five other teams rank top 100 - No. 53 Kentucky, No. 51 Colorado, No. 59 Tennessee-Chattanooga, No. 77 Ole Miss and No. 74 South Florida, and other teams slated to play include Florida Atlantic, Florida International and North Carolina-Greensboro.
TOURNEY PLAY / LIVE RESULTS
The Ducks will play one 18-hole round each morning, and live stats will be available at the www.GolfStat.com website. More tournament information is available at the University of Florida’s www.GatorZone.com athletic department website.
POLL POSITIONS
Complete team and individual weekly Golf Week magazine national rankings are available at the www.golfweek.com website.
DUCKS TO WATCH
For UO on the individual front, freshman Kendra Little continues to hold a top-100 position in the Golf Week national rankings (92nd, 73.76 rating), and is followed by junior Cathryn Bristow (111th, 74.08) and sophomore Felicia Eastick (215th, 75.27).
Little paced the Ducks in six of her 15 rounds in the fall and had four rounds of 72 or better, including a 3-, 2-, 1-under and par round in various fall tourneys.
Bristow led UO in six fall rounds, including the last four of the slate in the Stanford Intercollegiate (two-under 69) and USF Invitational (75-72-72). The latter stop netted a runner-up finish overall and was one of two, top-10 efforts including the Edean Ihlanfedlt Invitational (eighth, 77-73-71)
Also a team leader in four rounds last fall, Eastick shot a career low three-under 69 en route to a win in the season opening Giustina Memorial Classic in Corvallis (74-69-74) in mid-September.
RECENT RESULTS
In UO’s last action in the fall in November’s USF Invitational in the Bay Area, the then-No. 45 Ducks took fourth (918). UO improved each round (308-307-303) on the par 71, 5,955-yard Richmond Country Club course, and finished 11 strokes behind the winner, UC Davis (first, 308-299-300-907).
Bristow’s final round 72 was the third-lowest score of the day, and her final score (75-72-72-219) was only four strokes behind the winner Therese Kolbaeck of UNLV (75-71-69-215). Little also finished top 15 overall for the fourth time in her fifth collegiate tournament (13th-t, 76-74-78-228).
Other Duck scorers included sophomore Kate Hildahl (24th-tie, 76-81-76-233) and junior Blair Ressler (33rd, 82-80-77-239). UO’s other team entry was freshman Erica Omlid (40th-tie, 81-84-79-244), and two other Ducks saw action as individuals ? freshmen Tiffany Schoning (35th-tie, 78-83-81-242) and Monika Graf (44th-tie, 82-84-80-246).
OTHER FALL TIDBITS
In other stops of the fall, the Ducks opened the season with third-place finishes in two of their first three tourneys ? the Giustina Memorial (299-304-300) and Edean Ihlandfeldt Invitational (307-290-303) in Corvallis, Ore., and Sammamish, Wash., respectively, and also competed in the Heather Fall Memorial (sixth, 038-298-295-901) and Stanford Invitational (16th, 310-319-303-932).
DUCK STATS
To see current UO women’s golf statistics, choose the STATISTICS link at the top of the UO women’s golf page or go to the http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=36837&SPID=247&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=1283367 URL address.
TOP DUCK
In 2007-08, Duck head coach Shannon Rouillard returns for her eighth season at the helm and guided Oregon to 11th place in the 2000 NCAA Championships, while UO regional-qualifying squads just missed return NCAA trips three of the past six seasons. As a player, she was a Pac-10 honorable mention all-conference honoree for UO in 1995 and took seventh in the 1993 Pac-10 Championships to help the squad to a fourth-place finish. She was tabbed twice as the team’s most improved player and was a team captain and MVP her senior season after she took 29th in the NCAA Championships that season.
After her collegiate career, Rouillard was a 1999 Women's U.S. Open qualifier and a medalist in the Lake Merced (Calif.) qualifying tournament. Before she returned to the Duck program as a coach, she played on the Players West Golf Tour (1995-96) and served as an assistant women's golf coach at California (1997).
Earlier this past fall, Rouillard was again busy as a player in the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur, held in Carefree, Ariz., after she tied for 35th in stroke play qualifying (80-81-161). A month before, she claimed medalist honors in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am qualifier at Oswego Lake Country County Club in late August, and won the single-round event by two strokes with her 74.
JONES JOINS IN
The Duck coaching staff is rounded out by first-year assistant Meredith Jones. The Eugene native was one of Baylor’s top players from 2003-06, and an All-Big 12 Tournament selection and top 15 conference championships finishers all three seasons. She enjoyed a seventh-place Big 12 placing as a sophomore, followed by 12th- and 14th-place efforts as a junior and senior, and also played on Baylor’s first-ever NCAA tournament qualifiers. She wrapped up her collegiate career with a low round of 70, and posted seven top-10 finishes, including a career best third-place effort in the 2006 Central District Invitational. As a prep, the three-time state champion helped Marist High School to five championships.
Off the course, she was honored as an Academic All-American, Academic All-Big-12, Commissioners Honor Roll and NCGA Scholar selection.
Her family enjoys strong ties to the Duck athletic department. Her father Dr. Donald Jones is a UO team doctor, and her brother-in-law Peter Sirmon was an All-Pac-10 linebacker for the Ducks.
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