VIDEO: Suzanne Strudwick Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After closing out the fall with back-to-back top-3 finishes, the Carson-Newman women's golf team heads to the Slammer & Squire in St. Augustine, Fla. for the Sixth Annual World Golf Hall of Fame Invitational, hosted by Flagler, on Sunday and Monday.
This trip marks the team's first appearance in the event since 2014, Strudwick's inaugural season, when the team finished in seventh as C-N's Meridith Hawkins took a fourth-place finish.
"The golf course, the Slammer & Squire, I think it will set up very well for us," head coach Suzanne Strudwick analyzed. "It's a golf course that requires some accuracy on the tee and we have that.
"It's always tough in our region and where we are because of the weather conditions in late January and early February, but that's one of the reasons we're heading down south is to try to get a good first tournament under our belt with some good conditions on the golf course, as well."
Elizabeth England (Oakland, Tenn.) leads the pack of Eagles heading to St. Augustine. She closed out the fall with a 76.2 stroke average through four events with a win at the King Invitation to open her senior campaign.
Taylor Hayes (Lake Ozark, Mo.) also makes the trip after competing in all four fall events for C-N. She compiled a 77.2 stroke average, her best showing being a seventh-place finish at the King Invitational.
The Eagles' travel team is rounded out by a trio of sophomores in Reagan Kinnie (Murfreesboro, Tenn.), Allie Fletcher (Cumming, Ga.) and Rachel Watts (Newport, Tenn.). Kinnie is the only one of the three who participated in every fall event. The trio combined for five top-20 finishes to open the 2017-2018 season.
"Most of my girls are from this (East Tennessee) region, so they were affected heavily with their practice just with the weather being so poor," Strudwick said. "Over the past couple of weeks, the practice has been a little rusty; I can see our qualifying scores were about three to five shots higher than we were doing at the end of the fall."
C-N is among 18 teams participating in the Invitational and is the lone representative of the South Atlantic Conference. Of the 18 teams, 16 teams participated last year. 2017's top team from Barry University is not among the group teeing off in this year's event. Second and third place teams Florida Tech and Saint Leo make their return to the field this season.
The Eagles will once again face North Georgia, Young Harris and West Florida in the invitational, three teams they encountered during the fall. Nova Southeastern, Golfstat's second-ranked team in the nation, will also make an appearance in the event, marking the second straight meeting between the teams since the Sharks won the CBU Super Regional in October, C-N finished third in that event.
Aside from Nova Southeastern, five other teams in the field are currently in the top-25 of the Golfstat rankings including No. 4 Saint Leo, No. 6 Lynn, No. 11 Tampa, No. 21 Cal State Monterey Bay and No. 24 Flagler.
"I would like to say that they're not fearful anymore, you know, that they've kind of played with the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 team in the country and played alongside them so they know there's not that much difference, it's just those odd little shots around the greens, a decision, a wrong decision over a shot of what to play," Strudwick said. "So, they're there, it just takes that little bit more focus and attention and just playing the percentages.
The World Golf Hall of Fame Invitational opens on Sunday with an 18-hole round at the 6,049-yard course at Slammer & Squire that holds a par of 72. Live stats will be provided by the staff at Flagler College through Golfstat.
