Women's college golf: Bulldogs open schedule in Mexico

ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia women’s golf team will begin the team portion of its 2024 calendar on Friday when the Bulldogs open play at the Collegiate Invitational at Guadalajara Country Club.
 
Georgia hosted the Lady Bulldog Individual Championship last Saturday at the UGA Golf Course when four Bulldogs posted top-10 finishes.
 
“Just like the individual piece, it’s exciting,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “It’s a chance to learn where we are as a team in January and not where we were when we ended the fall. As we know, this is the dash to May and San Diego for the national championships. We’ll know a lot more about ourselves in three or four days from now. That’s the most exciting piece of it. The journey is fun.”
 
Georgia, which has notched top-20 finishes at each of the last three NCAA Championships, enters the spring at No. 30 in the NCAA’s new Spikemark ranking system. No. 18 Cal is the highest-ranked team competing in Mexico. Tournament host Virginia is also in the top 25 at No. 23. The remaining competing schools are Colorado State, Florida State, Louisville, Maryland, and N.C. State, New Mexico, SMU, Tennessee and UNLV.
 
This weekend’s tournament will feature 27 holes of play on both Friday and Saturday, a deviation from the traditional 36-18 format for most two-day events.
 
“It’s interesting,” said fifth-year senior Caterina Don. “Sometimes I feel like when it’s 36-18, it’s a long day. This weekend, with 27-27, is definitely different. I think it makes you take the approach of playing shot-by-shot, call it quits for that day and restart the next day.”
 
Don will occupy the top spot in Georgia’s lineup. The fifth-year senior from Pinerolo, Italy, has enjoyed a stellar season, with four top-10 finishes in five tournaments. Don is a combined 15-under over 13 rounds to date.
 
Rounding out the Bulldogs’ playing five are juniors LoraLie Cowart and Kate Song and freshmen Savannah De Bock and Natachanok “Drive” Tunwannarux. In addition, graduate transfer Bernice Olivarez Ilas will compete as an individual.
 
“All of them have world-class resumes, but to fit together as a team is something we have to work on and see how they get along as a group,” Brewer said. “We’ll learn a lot about ourselves simply from the travel piece and how we mesh on the road away from the golf course.”
 
Tunnwannarux played in one fall event, shooting 4-under en route to tying for 20th at the Cougar Classic.
 
“I am super excited to start playing again and can’t wait to be busy,” Tunwannarux said. “I have been dying to play, so I feel really ready to play.”
 
After competing individually last weekend, Don and Tunwannarux are eager to have a team leaderboard this weekend. However, their approaches are to focus on themselves on the course.
 
“I always go in with the mindset that you never know what anyone else is doing, so you just have to do what you can try to play the best that you can,” Don said. “At the end of the week, we’ll see where we stand. I’m really excited because it’s a new team. We have a couple of new players in the lineup, so I’m excited to see where we start the season and where we have to improve going forward to make sure we have a great experience come May.”
 
“The longer I play golf, my approach to golf changes so much through time,” Tunwannarux said. “I just want to go play, have fun, enjoy the course, and be there with the girls. I want to be there, supporting and rooting for each other, and go kick butt.”
 
Georgia will tee off in nine-minute intervals between 10:30-11:06 am ET on Friday and be paired with SMU and New Mexico for the first round and a half. Live scoring will be available throughout the tournament at www.golfstat.com.