AUBURN, Ala. – The No. 21 Auburn women's golf team will open the 2018-2019 season this weekend at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tennessee.
The 54-hole event, hosted by Vanderbilt, runs Friday through Sunday at the par 72, 6,430-yard Vanderbilt Legends Club (North Course) just outside Nashville. It is Auburn's 12th appearance in the event, including last year when the Tigers earned a tie for fifth place in the 15-team field.
However this year, the players are confident they can build on that success.
"I'm excited," sophomore Mychael O'Berry said. "We have a really strong team this year. We're super competitive, which is always a good thing. And for this tournament, I would say that we are good enough to win. The bar is set high, so hopefully we can follow through."
O'Berry, playing in the No. 4 spot, will be joined by juniors Elena Hualde Zúñiga (No. 1) and Kayley Marschke (No. 5) and fellow sophomores Kaleigh Telfer (No. 2) and Julie McCarthy (No. 3) in Auburn's lineup this weekend.
Last month, Hualde Zúñiga and Telfer both represented their country at the World Amateur Team Championships in Ireland and finished in the Top 35 individually.
Tee times begin at 8:30 a.m. CT all three days. Pairings and live scoring can be found on golfstat.com.
The field
The 15-team field for this year's Mason Rudolph Championships includes Auburn, Arizona State, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Clemson, Houston, Louisville, LSU, Mercer, Michigan State, Middle Tennessee, Missouri, North Carolina and Wake Forest.
Including Auburn (No. 21), six of the 15 teams in the tournament are ranked in the Top 25 of the Women's Collegiate Golf Association (WGCA) preseason poll.
Happy to be back
Hualde Zúñiga is more than deserving of the top spot in the lineup considering she's one of two juniors competing and her final scoring average (73.80) was third-best on the team last year. But she's also playing at one of her favorite courses this weekend and a course that she's had plenty of success at over the years.
Last year, Hualde Zúñiga shot a 67 in the first round of the Mason Rudolph Championship, which tied for the team's low round of the season. She finished seventh overall with a score of 7-under for the weekend. As a freshman, she placed sixth with scores of 68-72-72=210 (-4).
"Elena has done really well here before," McCarthy said. "She said she loves the course."
Top qualifiers
Though Hualde Zúñiga and Telfer will play in the top spots for Auburn this weekend, it was O'Berry and McCarthy who finished No. 1 and No. 2 during the qualifiers.
O'Berry, in particular, was the top qualifier for the first event and continues to build off a strong summer in which she qualified for and competed in the U.S. Girls Junior Championship at Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach, California. It was her first USGA tournament.
"I had a really good summer," O'Berry said. "I finally got some things figured out. Some things clicked together. It just gives you a boost of confidence just knowing that you're playing well, especially coming into the season. Playing well over the summer got me going for qualifying, and then obviously playing well in qualifying got me here. I'm ready to play well."
In memory of
The entire team will wear black ribbons on their hats this weekend as a tribute to former Iowa State golfer Celia Barquin Arozamena, who was killed this week. Hualde Zúñiga and Barquin Arozamena, both from Spain, were friends and had played together in the past.
"She's going to be with me the whole way, and I'm playing for her," Hualde Zúñiga said. "I'm certain she is going to help me out there. She left us, but her spirit will always be there."
| Auburn's Lineup | |
| Elena Hualde Zúñiga Junior Pamplona, Spain (1) | Kaleigh Telfer Sophomore Kyalami, So. Africa (2) | Julie McCarthy Sophomore Swords, Ireland (3) | Mychael O'Berry Sophomore Hoover, Ala. (4) | Kayley Marschke Junior Suwanee, Ga. (5) |