The Tennessee women’s golf team will gear up for the final time this regular season as they head to Sunset, South Carolina, to compete in the Clemson Invitational.
Tennessee will face solid competition, facing off against a total of 17 other universities and three top-10 teams, including Florida State (4), Florida (5) and Furman (8), just two weeks before heading into the SEC Championships.
Head Coach Judi Pavon says this competition will not be the toughest but will be a good opportunity to polish up before heading into the championships.
“This will be a little bit harder field than what we had faced at Augusta, so what we’re really trying to do is continue our good play. The girls are really starting to come together and play well so we want to just keep continuing to play well and then see where that puts us,” Pavon said.
So far this season, Pavon’s team has been averaging 293.96 strokes per round and has finished in the top five in six tournaments.
This week’s lineup will consist of two SEC Players of the Week, Hannah Pietila and Blaksley Warren, though the remaining lineup is nothing to discount. Lucia Polo, Micheala Williams and Teleri Hughes have strung together some pretty solid tournaments thus far in their careers at UT.
Polo placed in the top 10 individually in this year’s Auburn vs. Tennessee challenge in February as well as top 25 in the Augusta 3m Classic Invitational for the third time this year.
Williams has compiled five rounds of par or better at this point, accumulating three top-15 finishes herself.
Hughes has been part of three fall tournaments averaging 76.33 strokes per round, and her first top-15 finish came
earlier this year at the Auburn vs Tennessee Challenge.
Despite being honored with SEC Golfer of the Week, Blakesly Warren seems unphased and ready to compete with her team.
“Its really exciting to receive that, but I guess, if anything, it just gives me confidence. I think we’re playing well as a team; we finished second at Augusta so we’re pretty confident and just going to try and build off that,” Warren said.
The tournament and course itself will be located on the reserve at Lake Keowee (par 72, 6,260) and all three rounds will begin at 8 a.m. This will be the second year in a row that Tennessee has made an appearance in the invitational, coming in top-10 last year with Florida taking the overall win with a score of 861.
After this week, Tennessee will incur a two week break before entering the SEC championships April 21-23.
