Women's Golf Claims Second Consecutive NCAA Regional Bid
Apr 28, 2003 | Women's Golf
April 28, 2003
NEW ORLEANS, La. - The Tulane University women's golf team received its second consecutive bid to the NCAA Regionals and third in school history as the Green Wave squad claimed the No. 8 seed at the East Regional Monday afternoon as announced by the NCAA Division 1 Women's Golf Committee.
Tulane, ranked 19th in the nation by Golfweek.com and 22nd in Division I by GolfStat.com, is one of four Conference USA teams to earn berths in the postseason as South Florida and East Carolina garnered the No. 11 and No. 12 seeds in the East Regional, respectively, and TCU earned the No. 11 seed in the Central Regional.
"This is a very expected and well deserved honor for this team," head coach Sue Bower said. "With the information that is available to us via the internet, there's no real guessing games going on as to who's going to make the Regionals. We're the No. 8 seed, and they take the top eight regional finishers to the national tournament. We've got some work to do, but our girls understand what it takes to compete at the Regional level."
Last season, Tulane finished one stroke shy of advancing to the schools first ever NCAA Championship Tournament, claiming a ninth-place finish at the East Regional in Baton Rouge in 2002 with an 894. This year, however, the team made it a goal early on to make up that stroke and finish among the nation's elite.
The Green Wave did just that throughout the regular season, claiming three team titles and another three individual crowns. Tulane won the USF/Beacon Woods Invitational and the Edwin Watts/Palmetto Intercollegiate during the fall, and opened the spring season with a victory at the Tulane Invitational at English Turn.
Junior Carolin Landmann claimed her third individual tournament crown of her career during the 2002-03 season, sharing the Beacon Woods Invitational title with teammate Liliana Alvarez. Sophomore Lindsay Hulwick also won an individual crown, taking home the title at the Tulane Invitational for her first career tourney win.
Tulane claimed the No. 1 seed at the Conference USA Tournament a week ago in Dade City, Fla., but struggled at times and finished fourth at the league championships. Bower said her team understands what is at stake at the Regionals and that they are focused on achieving the goal they made at the season's onset.
"To my team's credit, we've learned from conference," Bower said. "We know that we have to just put that behind us and move on. It's now time to play the kind of golf that I know we're capable of playing."
The Green Wave opens Regional play on May 8 when they take part in the 21-team field at the Salem Glen Country Club in Clemmons, N.C. Hosted by Wake Forest, the Green Wave are seeded behind (in order of their seeding) Duke, Arizona, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Georgia and South Carolina. Behind the Tulane are North Carolina, Florida State, South Florida, East Carolina, Furman, UNC-Wilmington, North Carolina State, Mississippi State, Penn State, Ole Miss, Western Carolina, Georgia State and St. Francis.
The 21-team tournament will play 18 holes each day with the Regional wrapping up on Saturday May 10 with the final round. The top eight finishers qualify for the NCAA Championship which will be held on May 20-23 at the championship finals at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Ind., hosted by Purdue.
