The No. 13 LSU women’s golf team will face a strong field this weekend at the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The Invitational will take place over three rounds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the University of North Carolina’s Finley Golf Club. The 6,379-yard, par-72 layout is the home course of the tournament host, Tar Heels.
The Lady Tigers will try to rebound after finishing in the bottom half of the field at the Schooner Fall Classic in Norman, Oklahoma, last weekend.
At the event hosted by the University of Oklahoma, the Lady Tigers finished 11th place in the 17-team field, a drop from their second place finish at the season-opening Mason Rudolph Championship.
In North Carolina, LSU will face a field that includes nine teams ranked in the top 25 according to Golfweek’s most recent team rankings, including the No. 1-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks and the No. 2-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks.
The first group of the shotgun-start format will include the Lady Tigers, who will tee-off alongside the Tar Heels and the top-ranked Gamecocks.
Three players on the South Carolina team are ranked individually in the top 30 women’s college golfers in the country.
Junior Elise Bradley, who led LSU in Oklahoma as the only Lady Tiger under par, will face off against South Carolina senior Justine Dreher, who is the No. 1 ranked female college golfer individually, according to Golfweek.
Dreher hasn’t been bested yet this season, having won only one tournament, the ANNIKA Intercollegiate in Florida.
Sophomore Caroline Nistrup has gone just 5-over-par through six rounds of golf in two tournaments. Nistrup will go up against fellow Danish golfer and South Carolina’s No. 16-ranked freshman Nanna Madsen.
LSU’s highest ranked golfer is senior Madelene Sagstrom, who failed to defend her title at the Schooner Fall Classic. She will play alongside the third of South Carolina’s top-ranked golfers, junior Mary Fran Hillow.
LSU’s final two golfers of the tournament will be sophomore Carly Ray Goldstein and junior Nadine Dreher.