Badgers Alone in Eighth
October 04, 2004 | Women's Golf
Thanks to opening rounds of 309 and 313 (622) Badger Women's Golf stands alone in eighth-place at the 12-team Legends Shootout in Franklin, Ind. A pair of improving freshmen bolstered the UW lineup. Katie Elliott finds herself in the top-ten while classmate Mayumi Kobayashi's 36th-place effort would stand to be her career-best. Illinois State (295-306=601) leads the Legends' Shootout. ISU is followed by Notre Dame, one stroke off the pace (298-304=602). Michigan owns the Big Ten's highest finish of the day, in fifth-place (307-306=613).
Freshman Katie Elliot continues her impressive debut season, posting two rounds of six over-par golf (76-74=150) to earn a seventh-place tie with Illinois ' Megan Godfrey (76-74=150) among others. Lindsay McMillan earned 26th-place after day one (77-81=158). McMillan's opening round was just one-stroke shy of her season-best 76, shot during last week's Fossum Invitational.
Nicki Morse's 159 (80-79) ties with five others in 28th-place. Mayumi Kobayashi is tied for 36th, shooting a 76 in the first 18 holes for the UW's second-lowest round of the day. Kobayashi's opening round was just two strokes off her career-low 18-hole mark. Kobayashi heads into the tournament's last 18 holes, 25 places higher than her previous career-best finish (61st at the Sept. 11-12, 2004 Lady Northern Invitational).
A duo of Wisconsin upperclassmen, Melissa Martin (85-79=154) and Sami Forster (80-84=164), find themselves tied in 45th-place with five other competitors from Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Michigan and Minnesota. The meet's medalist thus far is Kent State's Gabby Wedding (73-73=146).
The par-72, 6,134-yard championship-style course has been friendly to UW Women's Golf. The school's 18-hole (289), 36-hole (605) and 54-hole (879) records were shot during the 2001 Legends Shootout on Sept. 9-10, 2001. As a part of the team on that day, Emily Hendricks shot a new UW 54-hole individual record 215 (71-70-74). One year later, recent graduate Malinda Johnson followed with a record-setting performance of her own, shooting Wisconsin all-time single-round low on Oct. 8, 2002 (66). Johnson mark improved her previous school-record (69) by three strokes.
A shotgun start begins 18 holes of golf tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. on Franklin Ind.'s Legends of Indiana Golf Course.
