Alabama Fourteenth After Round One of Mason Rudolph Championship
9/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ?? After competing in its first tournament of the season earlier this week, the Crimson Tide women's golf team had just three days to recover and have already completed the first round of the Mason Rudolph Women's Championship in Nashville, Tenn. The Tide carded a 305 as a team and stands in 14th place at the event, which is being hosted by Vanderbilt and played on the Vanderbilt Legends Club Ironhorse Course.
The field at the Mason Rudolph is among the best in the nation in the early 2006 fall season, with five of the nation's top 10 teams in attendance, including two-time defending national champion Duke and last year's NCAA runner-up UCLA. Of the 15 teams competing, 14 are ranked in the nation's top 50 and 11 are in the top 20 according to the most recent Golfweek poll. The Tide is at No. 33 in the most recent rankings.
Georgia, ranked sixth in the nation, leads the team standings after 18 holes of play after the Bulldogs carded a 280. The nation's top-two ranked teams, No. 1 Duke and No. 2 UCLA are in second and third, respectively, with Stanford and Arizona rounding out the top five.
Junior Sarah Sturm led the way for the Tide in the opening round by carding a 75. Sturm, who was second on the team in stroke average a season ago, tallied a pair of birdies on the round and is tied for 38th in the individual standings.
Jenny Suh, the only senior in the Alabama lineup for the event, was right behind Sturm. Suh, in search of her 23rd career top-10 finish, fired a 76 in Friday's action and is tied for 43rd place in the individual standings.
Laura Goodwin, who shot a career best 217 to open her sophomore season earlier this week at the Cougar Classic, posted a 78.
Two true freshmen, Helena Blomberg of Uppsala, Sweden and Rhea Nair from Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, are also competing for Alabama at the Mason Rudolph.
Blomberg, who made her career debut at the team's first outing earlier this week, carded a 76. Nair, making the first start of her intercollegiate career, finished with a 78.
Second-round action at the Mason Rudolph begins on Saturday, Sept. 16 at 8 a.m. Live scoring at the event is available at www.golfstat.com.
