Feb. 21, 2010

Tournament Notes | Live Scoring

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The 23rd-ranked South Carolina women’s golf team will look to build on the momentum from a strong finish to the fall season when they travel to Parrish, Fla., for the Central District Invitational, which runs Monday and Tuesday at River Wildnerness Golf Club.

The Gamecocks will send out a lineup of seniors Corrine Carr, Benedicte Toumpsin and Taylor Barrett, sophomore Katie Burnett and freshman Amanda Strang. The four veterans all played in this event last year, which saw the Gamecocks post an 11th-place finish. Carr, Burnett and Strang have played in every event this season, and this will be Barrett’s initial stroke-play outing of the year.

Last year at this event, South Carolina improved by 11 strokes in its final round to finish 11th with a score of 936 (+20). Toumpsin led the way for the Gamecocks, firing a 3-over-par 75 in the final round to finish at 11-over for the tournament and a tie for 20th place overall.

South Carolina hopes to keep up their strong play in the spring after posting one of their more successful fall seasons in recent memory. Their last time out, the team took home a third-place finish from the Mercedes-Benz Women’s Championship in October, their best 54-hole team finish in four years. The Gamecocks’ team score of 889 tied for the 10th-best 54-hole tournament in team history, and Corrine Carr earned the best individual finish of her career in fifth place at 1-over-par 217.

As usual, the Gamecocks will face another strong field this weekend. Including South Carolina, 13 of 15 teams in the field are ranked in the latest GolfWeek Top 50, led by No. 4 Purdue and tournament host No. 10 Michigan State. SEC foes include No. 17 Florida, No. 18 LSU and No. 38 Arkansas, while the other ranked teams are No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 24 Ohio State, No. 31 Kent State, No. 34 TCU, No. 37 Northwestern, No. 40 Notre Dame and No. 41 Texas. Michigan and Missouri round out the competitive field.

Play begins with 36 holes Monday and concludes with a single 18-hole round on Tuesday. The Gamecocks will be paired with Florida and Texas A&M for the first day, which gets underway with an 8 a.m. shotgun start. Live scoring will be available through golfstat.com.