Live Scoring | Shoal Creek Regional Web Site | NCAA Championship Program | EKU Golf Notes
RICHMOND, Ky. – EKU's women's golf team will make its third NCAA Regional appearance in the last four years when the team begins play at the Shoal Creek Regional on Thursday.
The Shoal Creek Regional, hosted by the University of Alabama, will be played at the Shoal Creek Club in Shoal Creek, Alabama Thursday through Saturday. Shoal Creek is located near Birmingham. Eighteen teams will compete in the Shoal Creek Regional including top ranked and No. 1 seed Alabama. Eastern is the No. 16 seed.
Shoal Creek will have a par of 72 and play to 6,470 yards.
The Colonels will play a practice round on Wednesday beginning on hole No. 10 at 10:08 a.m. ET. The team will begin teeing off for the first round on hole No. 10 at 10:09 a.m. ET on Thursday. EKU will be paired with No. 17 seed Oakland and No. 18 seed Alabama State for the first round.
Eastern Kentucky is playing in the NCAA Championship for the second straight year and the third time in four years. A total of 72 teams were selected for regional competition. Six teams will advance from each regional to the championship finals on May 20-25 at Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Oregon.
Seniors
Becky Sharpe,
Rachel Welker and
Anna Gleixner will be competing in the NCAA Regional for the third time in their careers. Junior
Sofie Levin will make her second appearance while freshman
Amanda Lindahl will play for the first time.
EKU captured the 2016 Ohio Valley Conference Championship and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. The Colonels beat the field by 18 shots and set new OVC Championship records for 54-hole total of 888 and team tournament scoring average of 296.00.
This season, EKU set a new program record for tournament wins with four, breaking the previous mark of three set by the 1996-97 and 2013-14 teams. Eastern Kentucky finished in the top-10 in all 11 events and posted a record of 96-25 (.793). Eight of those were top-5 performances. EKU won the Bluegrass Kickoff, the Ball State Cardinal Classic, the EKU Colonel Classic and at the 2016 OVC Championship.
The Colonels faced nine teams during the season that were selected for the four NCAA Regionals. EKU was 5-5 against those squads, including wins over Shoal Creek Regional teams Oakland and Alabama State.
At last year's NCAA South Bend Regional, Eastern Kentucky finished 15th. The Colonels finished one shot behind North Carolina and three shots in front of 45th ranked San Jose State. It was the best performance by an OVC team at the NCAA regional since the league began receiving an automatic bid in 2005. No other OVC squad had ever beaten more than two teams at a regional. The Colonels finished higher than three other teams at the South Bend Regional.
In addition to Alabama, the Shoal Creek Regional will feature No. 8 Northwestern, No. 9 Oklahoma State, No. 16 California, No. 17 Iowa State, No. 22 Florida State, No. 25 Tennessee, Missouri, Purdue, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Michigan, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State, Oakland and Alabama State.
The other three regional sites are Stanford, California; Bryan, Texas; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Shoal Creek opened in 1977. After a recommendation from Clifford Roberts (Augusta National Chairman), Hall Thompson called on the great Jack Nicklaus to design the course. This was the first course designed by Nicklaus on his own in the United States. The course itself was built on 1,550 acres between Oak Mountain and Double Oak Mountain. Thompson did not want just a golf course, as he argued there were already enough of those in Birmingham, rather a superior championship course that might one day attract a national amateur or professional event. Shoal Creek has hosted the 1984 and 1990 PGA Championship, the 1986 US Amateur, the 2008 US Junior Amateur Championship, the 2011-2015 Regions Tradition and is host to the 2018 United States Women's Open.
