Florida Gators
NCAA Championships
UF women's golf team ready for some home-course advantage in SunTrust Gator Invitational
Friday, March 4, 2011 | Men's Golf, Women's Golf, Scott Carter
The Florida women's golf team knows Mark Bostick Golf Course like a favorite pair of jeans or mom's apple pie.
MBGC is the Gators' home course, so they know how fast the greens are, where the danger spots are to avoid, and when to be aggressive and when to tone down club selection.
“The golf course we play requires a lot of local knowledge, a lot of patience,'' Gators head coach Jan Dowling said. “To play that course day in and day out is a huge advantage.''
The Gators hope that home-course advantage leads to a win on Sunday and Monday during the SunTrust Gator Invitational, Florida's only home tournament of the season.
The Gators are coming off a 12th-place finish in the Allstate Sugar Bowl Invitational in New Orleans. They have nearly a month break following the Gator Invitational, so a strong performance this weekend would be a perfect way to enter the final stretch of the regular season.
It's also been a goal for the Gators since the season started. They finished third a year ago in the Gator Invitational, the first home tournament for Dowling, who is in her second season.
The field includes several teams ranked in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings, including No. 16 Iowa State, No. 17 Arkansas, No. 29 Ohio State, No. 34 Kent State and No. 39 Chattanooga. Florida is currently No. 28, boosted by a strong performance from sophomore Mia Piccio in New Orleans.
Piccio finished 11th in the Allstate Sugar Bowl Invitational in one of the best performances of her college career. While Piccio is perhaps the Gators' hottest player, Dowling sees a lineup loaded with potential winners in the SunTrust Gator Invitational.
Sophomores Isabelle Lendl and Megan Pak, juniors Evan Jensen and Andrea Watt, and senior Jessica Yadloczky have all have had their moments on their home course.
“We definitely have some competition, but we definitely have the advantage,'' Dowling said. “It's one of those courses you look at on paper – it's a par 70, 6,000 yards – and it doesn't seem that long. But it's a hard golf course because the greens are small. You are not going to hit a ton of greens, so you've got to be able to get the ball up and down.
“You've got to have a great short game. You've got to use your imagination – hit a really high soft flop shot or you've got to hit something low and try to bank it in. You don't have too many stock chips out there. Our team kind of knows to be patient.''
Meanwhile, they also want to play well to prepare for the postseason. After this week, the Gators have only one regular-season tournament left before heading to Auburn for the SEC Tournament.
Playing at home is a bonus and a challenge.
“I think they relish it,'' Dowling said. “They do put some additional pressure on it, but it's a great experience for them – they kind of start feeling some of that late-season pressure. The cool thing with our team is that all five in the lineup could win the tournament.''
