March 27, 2008

COLUMBIA – For its final tune-up before the SEC Championships, South Carolina women’s golf will travel to Brown Summit, N.C., for the Bryan Park National Collegiate this weekend. The 18-team field, which includes eight teams ranked in the Golfweek top 25, will tee off on Fri., Mar. 28, on the Bryan Park Players Course, due to renovations on the typically-used Champions Course. It is just the second time in 11 years that the Players Course, a par-72, 6,319-yard layout, has been used.

The Gamecocks will inject some youth into the lineup for this event. In addition to spring tournament staples Blythe Worley, Whitney Simons and Bénédicte Toumpsin, head coach Kalen Anderson has selected Meredith Taylor, who made her college debut at last week’s Liz Murphey Collegiate, and freshman Erick Holmen, who will play her first tournament of the spring.

Toumpsin has been the team’s stroke average leader throughout the season at 73.86 but struggled in last week’s event. Her final-round 74 helped her bound up the leaderboard into 37th place after having difficulty in the first two rounds. Still, she ranks eighth in the SEC in stroke average and opened the spring campaign with consecutive top-five finishes.

Worley is angling to close her career on a high note. With a 76.05 average, she is second on the team and was the Gamecocks’ top scorer at last week’s Liz Murphey Collegiate. Playing as an individual in the Lady Puerto Rico Classic, she opened the spring with a 15th-place showing, her first top-15 finish since taking 10th at last year’s SEC Championship.

Simons has a 77.22 average and hopes to make a splash in her final season. She kicked off her senior year with a career-best round of 70 at the Cougar Classic and finished that event at a season-best +8. Simons was second on the team at the LSU Cleveland Classic two weeks ago, finishing in 41st place.

Taylor played her first collegiate event as an individual but scored her way into the team lineup for this weekend’s tournament. Finishing in 67th place, which was fourth among the Gamecocks, a second-round 76 was the highlight of her debut and was the fourth-lowest round shot by a South Carolina golfer at the tournament.

A fixture in the fall lineup, Holmen will face her first spring test this weekend. In four tournaments this season, she has the third-best stroke average at 76.67 and carded a season-low 70 in the first round of the Mason Rudolph Championship in September to finish second on the team.

The nationally-ranked teams at this tournament are No. 1 Duke, which has won the event six times in 11 years, No. 5 Florida, No. 11 Auburn, No. 12 Arkansas, No. 14 Wake Forest, No. 17 Tennessee, No. 19 Michigan State and No. 24 Virginia. Ten other teams, including the Gamecocks, looking to knock off the pre-tournament favorites are College of Charleston, Florida State, Furman, UNC Greensboro, North Carolina, N.C. State, Penn State, TCU and UNC Wilmington.