Upstate Women's Golf Set To Open Season
9/18/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Sept. 18, 2009
Spartanburg, S.C. - The USC Upstate women's golf team is set to open the 2009-10 season, its fifth in the history of the program, when it hits the links at the Great Smokies Intercollegiate hosted by Western Carolina at the Waynesville Golf Resort Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19-20. The 36-hole event will be the first of five tournaments for the Spartans this fall. The 24-team field is a solid mix of regional and east coast teams with A-Sun foe Belmont joining the fray.
Upstate will be paired with Alabama-Birmingham, Old Dominion and Western Kentucky in the first round, teeing off at 9:00 a.m. Saturday. Upstate will make its second appearance in the tournament after turning in a ninth-place finish in last year's 22-team tournament. The Spartans turned in rounds of 301 and 299 for a 600 total.
Upstate Hits The Links With New Lineup
When Upstate tees off in the Great Smokies Intercollegiate, it will do so with four new regular faces in the tournament lineup. For the better part of the last four years, the Spartans relied on the services of former standouts Julie Miller, Richelle Wedzik, Richia Wedzik, Audrey Church and Jessica Wofford to carry the team. Those five players, seniors in 2008-09, formed a solid foundation for the program which played its first competitive season in 2005-06. A new face broke into the lineup last spring when Jennifer Judge transferred to Upstate from Southern Miss. Judge played in six tournaments and finished with the third-lowest stroke average on the team, an 81.2 mark. Joining her in the lineup for the season-opening tournament will be Natalie Buch, Johanna Ebenhag, Cheryl Lo and Summer Wall.
Ebenhag spent the better part of the 2008-09 season on the sidelines dealing with a nagging back injury. She played in one event a year ago and four as a freshman in 2007-08, giving head coach Todd Lawton a veteran leader on the course in her third season on the team. Despite playing her first season for the Spartans in 2009-10, Cheryl Lo will enter the lineup with college experience having transferred to Upstate after one year playing at Florida International. She played in two tournaments and finished the year with an 83.0 stroke average. Wall, who transferred to Upstate from Spartanburg Methodist at the start of last year, played in one tournament a year ago, while Buch did not see any tournament action last season.
Looking Back At 2008-09
Upstate finished its second year playing on the NCAA Division I level at the A-Sun Championships, finishing their first conference tournament in ninth place. The Spartans turned in two top five finishes, finishing a strong third at the Holiday Inn Express/Hatter Classic in DeLand, Fla., to end the fall season and a collecting a fifth-place finish in the Larry Nelson Collegiate in March. Richelle Wedzik led the team with a 79.9 stroke average, taking her second team stroke average total in three years with the Spartans. Julie Miller, though, led the Spartans with a team-best two top 10 finishes and one top five effort. Jennifer Judge, though, was a welcome addition in the spring, turning in the second-lowest stroke average on the team in the spring with an 81.2 stroke average. She finished as the second-lowest Spartan in all six events she played.
Ebenhag Looks For Healthy 2009-10
Johanna Ebenhag, a junior from Gothenberg, Sweden, battled a nagging back injury throughout the season in 2008-09. After playing in four tournaments as a freshman in 2007-08, she managed to play in just one event last year. She has worked throughout the summer to rid herself of her back troubles and has returned at full strength for the fall season.
Judge Looks To Continue To Pace The Spartans
When Jennifer Judge transferred to Upstate from Southern Miss to start the spring semester in 2009, the Spartans were in need of a shot in the arm. Judge certainly provided that. She finished the season with two top 20 finishes, including a sixth-place finish at the Larry Nelson Collegiate. The sixth-place effort was the second-best performance on the team behind Julie Miller's fifth-place finish in the same tournament. With 16 rounds under her belt for Upstate, she is the most experienced player on the Upstate team this year.
Lo Looks To Make A Splash At Upstate
Upstate head coach Todd Lawton would like to see Cheryl Lo have a similar impact to the team this year as Jennifer Judge had on the Spartans last spring. Lo transferred to Upstate after spending one season at Florida International. She played in two tournaments and finished the season with an 83.0 stroke average. She had a solid junior career in her native Malaysia. She competed in the SUKMA Malaysian Games in 2004, one year after picking up the game. She also played in the Greg Norman National Junior Masters qualifier and won the 2007 Hills Golf Academy championship.
Buch, Wall Step Into The Lineup
With five seniors dominating the season last year, cracking the starting lineup was a tall task. Natalie Buch used her freshman season to gain experience through practice and enters 2009-10 ready to make her mark as a competitive player. She was strong in qualifying for the season opener. Wall competed in one event last year. She was simply solid in qualifying rounds and played her way into the lineup for this weekend's tournament.
