JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Almost a week removed from its sixth-place finish at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate, No. 23/25 Carson-Newman makes its Louise Suggs Invitational debut at the Sunset Hills Country Club in Carrollton, Ga. starting Monday.
Last week's 86-over finish at the Division I event at the Sevierville Golf Club moved the Eagles down two spots to No. 23 in the Golfstat rankings that were released on March 16. Ellie Haughton (Lincolnshire, England) and Maeve Cummins (Waringstown, Northern Ireland) were the only Eagles to land in the top-20 of the field, finishing tied for 13th and standalone 18th, respectively.
This is the team's first trip to the second annual event hosted by West Georgia who is No. 18 in the latest national poll from the Women's Golf Coaches Association. The event's namesake was one of the founding members of the LPGA. Suggs was a 61-time winner on the LPGA tour and served as the organization's president from 1955-57. The course the event is played on was the home of the Carrollton Open from 1950-1955, an LPGA event that she won in 1951 and 1954. Her father was also the head professional at Sunset Hills.
Haughton heads the starting lineup this week for her second top-spot start of the season. She opened the season at the No. 1 slow for C-N at the Battle at Hilton Head. This latest start comes after a career-best 54-hole outing at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate where she carded a 17-over 230. She carded the fourth-most par holes in the event with 35. Playing in all eight rounds that the team has seen this season, the sophomore has the second-lowest scoring average on the year at 78.28.
Cummins moves down to the No. 2 seed this week after leading the team into battle in both of the last two events. She was 20-over at the BNI with a 233, notching her second top-20 finish of the season and the 17th of her career. The junior still has the best scoring clip for C-N this season at 77.6 through eight rounds of action. She and Haughton are the only Eagles to play in all three of the events that the team has appeared in this season.
Back in the lineup for just the second time this season and the first time since the Low Tide Intercollegiate at the beginning of March is Matilda Frövenholt (Öjersjö, Sweden), heading to the Peach State as the No. 3 seed. In her last appearance on the links, the senior led the team with a 13-over 229 that was good enough for a share of 12th. She averaged a 76.3 single round score in that event for the 10th top-20 finish in her four-year career.
Hannah Holland (Sale Creek, Tenn.) gets ready for her third event of the season, this time at the No. 4. She played in both of the first two events of the year, starting as high as the second-seed at the Low Tide. The redshirt-sophomore is averaging a single-round score of 78.8. Her best outing came at the Battle at Hilton Head back in February where she went 14-over for a 13th-place finish.
Starting in her third-straight event on the season is Alice Thomas (Mid Glamorgan, Wales), rounding out the lineup in the fifth-spot. Through her first two events of her career, the freshman is shooting an 80.7 average with her best finish being a tie for 28th at the Low Tide Intercollegiate.
Carson-Newman is one of five teams in the event field and the only one hailing from the South Atlantic Conference. It and the hosting Wolves will be joined by Shorter, Columbus State and West Florida, who is No. 13 in the WGCA poll and No. 19 in the West Florida poll.
Columbus State won the inaugural event in 2019 with West Georgia's Franziska Bremm winning the top medalist honor.
The two-day event starts on Monday with 36 holes of play that begins at 8:30 a.m. with a shotgun start. It wraps up on Tuesday with a final round.
