April 1, 2010

Tournament Notes | Live Scoring

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s women’s golf team will have its final tune-up before the SEC Championship this weekend as the Gamecocks travel to Greensboro, N.C., for the Bryan National Collegiate. The tournament runs Friday through Sunday, April 2-4, at the Bryan Park Golf & Enrichment Center’s Players Course.

The Gamecocks come into the week looking to keep some momentum going after they finished last week’s Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic on a strong note, climbing the leaderboard over the final two days to finish 11th in an elite 23-team field. Last season at this event, Taylor Barrett fired a season-best 1-under-par 71 in the final round and the South Carolina women’s golf team equaled its best finish of the season with a sixth-place showing at the Bryan National Collegiate. The Gamecocks fired a final-round 295 (+7) to stay in the sixth position and finish at 43-over for the tournament.

The five qualifiers for the Gamecock lineup this week are seniors Corrine Carr, Taylor Barrett and Benedicte Toumpsin, sophomore Katie Burnett, and freshman Amanda Strang. All but Strang have previous experience in this event, albeit on the Champions Course at the same facility. Carr has played in this event three previous times – twice while at Furman – with her best finish being a tie for 37th in 2008. Toumpsin will be making her fourth appearance in Greensboro as well after a tie for 13th place last year and a tie for 24th in 2007. Burnett tied for 20th last season in her only appearance to date, and Barrett had one of her best tournaments of the season last year, tying for 32nd place.

This year will mark the 13th playing of the Bryan National Collegiate, with the Gamecocks having participated in nine of the previous 12 tournaments. The best Gamecock finish came last year when they tied for sixth place at 907 (+43), finishing ahead of SEC foes Tennessee, Arkansas and Georgia. Individually, Kristy McPherson had a pair of top-10 finishes in 2001 and 2003, including a tie for medalist honors in a weather-shortened 2003 event, one of her school-record six individual medals.

Eighteen teams will vie for the Bryan National Collegiate title with 14 of the 18 ranked in the latest GolfWeek Top 50. Leading the way are No. 3 Auburn and No. 4 Duke, followed by No. 13 Tennessee, No. 15 Wake Forest, No. 17 Virginia and No. 20 LSU to round out the top 20. Also competing with the 26th-ranked Gamecocks are No. 21 Ohio State, No. 22 Vanderbilt, No. 25 Florida State, No. 29 North Carolina, No. 30 Louisville, No. 32 Arkansas and No. 39 Northwestern. The field is rounded out by College of Charleston, NC State, co-host UNC Greensboro and UNC Wilmington.

The Gamecocks will be paired with Ohio State and Louisville on the No. 10 tee for Friday’s first round, which gets underway at 8:20 a.m. Live scoring will be available throughout the weekend on Golfstat.com.