The final day of the Schooner Classic in Norman, Okla. began with an LSU golfer in the lead and ended the same way.
The names just swapped.
Junior Madelene Sagstrom fired a 66 in the final round to take home her first individual title, while freshman Caroline Nistrup’s 2-over-par 72 dropped her from first to fourth as the Lady Tigers fell from the team lead into a tie for third.
LSU finished eight strokes behind Oklahoma State, which used a 1-under par final round to run away with the team crown. Oklahoma beat the Lady Tigers by nine strokes in the third round to claim second.
But the individual champion honors belonged to Sagstrom, who had never won a college tournament despite an All-Southeastern Conference campaign as a sophomore.
She bided her time at Belmar Golf Club, sticking around with consecutive even-par 70 rounds to open the event.
Sagstrom nearly pulled away from the field, opening the round with three birdies in four holes before two bogies threatened to stunt her round. But four birdies in the next seven holes made a late bogey irrelevant, as Sagstrom held off Kentucky’s Liz Breed by two shots.
“Madelene’s had several second-place finishes and close calls,” said LSU coach Karen Bahnsen. “We agreed no one was going to look at the scores and just stay in the moment — she calls it her bubble. She stayed in the moment today and got over the hump.”
Breed posted a tournament-best 64 on Monday to push Sagstrom down the stretch.
Sagstrom’s performance was a noticeably better effort than her junior debut, when she finished 4-over par and tied for 30th last month at the Cougar Classic in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, Nistrup posted another top-15 effort to begin her collegiate career, building off a 13th-place finish at the Cougar Classic.
She entered Monday’s round with the lead after an impeccable 5-under-par 65 during Sunday’s blustery weather to offset a first-round 73.
An LSU duel for first appeared imminent, with Sagstrom and Nistrup occupying the top spots on the leaderboard through two rounds. Instead, a triple bogey 7 on the fifth hole and three bogeys in the last 10 holes derailed Nistrup’s title hopes.
“It’s a weird little par 4 straight up the hill,” Bahnsen said of Nistrup’s fifth hole. “If you hit it over the green a little bit, you go out of bounds and she just missed by one club long or she’d be right there for the win. She did balance the bogeys with some birdies late and really fought to keep us in it.”
Senior Ali Lucas bounced back from a tough Sunday with a seven-shot improvement for an even-par 70 on Monday. She finished tied for 22nd.
The par-4s hindered LSU all week, as the Lady Tigers posted a 4.36 stroke average on those holes, tied for eighth out of 16 teams. Oklahoma State finished 26 strokes better on such holes.
Sagstrom, however, didn’t struggle with them. She averaged 3.87 strokes on par-4s, tied for the best in the field.
Still, the tournament was a comeback of sorts after an 11th-place finish at the Cougar Classic disappointed Bahnsen.
“We didn’t put too much stock into that first one,” Bahnsen said. “I’m really proud of the team — even though we didn’t finish off the win — that we fought some wind and tough conditions during this tournament and were in contention. Two of our girls struggled [Monday]. If we had gotten that fourth score, we could have won it.”
Golf: Sagstrom storms to first career title
October 7, 2013