The Tennessee Women’s Golf program has started off its spring season with an impressive performance at the Collegiate Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico, over the weekend.  

Thanks in part to three top-10 finishes from Lady Vols, Tennessee was able to capture second place and notch its best finish in a tournament since November 2020.

Entering the tournament after steadily improving throughout each tournament this fall season, Tennessee has shown signs of growth in each of its three seasons under head coach Diana Cantu.

In round one of action, Tennessee struggled to pick up the pieces that they had worked to build and shake off three months of extended rest, finishing eighth out of 12 teams in the field. 

Senior Vanessa Gilly led the way for the struggling Vols with a score of 3-over and tied for 13th. Sophomore Manassanan Chotikabhukkana would have had a solid round if not for a triple bogey on 13. She would enter day two with a score of 4-over and tied for 20th. 

After recouping and analyzing mistakes made, Tennessee entered the second round and final day of play a different team and battled from the back of the leaderboard to the top. 

Three out of five of the scoring players entered round two hot, carding at least two birdies before their next bogey. Chotikabhukkana would find her consistent rhythm that helped her excel this fall and have a very clean round only blemished with a double bogey on the front, followed promptly by a 3-under back nine. 

The Lady Vols posted a tied-for-best score of 295 in round two, fueled by three scores of 36 or better on the back nine. Fueled by this momentum, Tennessee dominated the final round. 

The lowest score of round three and second lowest for the entire tournament belong to the Lady Vols with an impressive score of 292. Led by personal bests and impressive birdies, Tennessee closed out the tournament 10 shots behind first-place Florida State. 

Perhaps the most impressive performance from the entire tournament was achieved by senior Kayla Holden who had the largest movement in individual ranking thanks to a 1-under final round. 

Holden was unable to compete to begin the tournament, logging a score of 8-over in her first round and tied for 49th place. Starting her second round with a triple bogey on the second hole, it seemed nothing could go right for Holden, but entering the final 18 holes of the tournament, she found her groove and carded a 3-under on the front nine. She would finish her tournament moving from 46th into a tie for 18th with a score of 9-over. If not for a double bogey on the final hole of the tournament, she would have placed in the top 10 as well for the Lady Vols.

Chotikabhukkana carried on her consistent play to earn her third top-10 finish of the season, and thanks to her 71 in the second round, she is now tied at 10th for the all-time program record for rounds of par or better at 27.

Also providing impressive scores was Gilly, who claimed her third top-10 of the season and her fifth in her four-year career. Junior Bailey Davis also carded her best finish of the season thanks to back-to-back rounds of 2-over.

The Lady Vols finished the tournament with the most birdies at 40 — four more than champion Florida State — and were also at the top of each scoring average for each type of hole played. 

Entering the spring season, Tennessee has four more tournaments to prepare for the SEC Championship held in Belleair, Florida, on April 12.

Cantu will have her team ready to compete once again on Feb. 18 as the Lady Vols return to the United States to compete in the Spartan Sun Coast Invitational in Sarasota, Florida.