After a well-deserved break, the Florida women’s golf team took to the road yet again.
This time, its destination was New Orleans to compete in this year’s Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate tournament.
The No. 11 Gators teed off Sunday morning against 16 other teams, including five top-25 teams, and finished in a tie for third with Tulane with a team score of even par after Round 1.
"I’m happy to be in the hunt of the tournament after the first day," UF coach Emily Glaser said in a release. "I saw a lot of good things from the team today."
Junior Maria Torres was impressive in the opening round, finishing tied for second place at three under-par. She also finished without a single bogey and tied her collegiate-best mark of three birdies.
Meanwhile, sophomore Taylor Tomlinson and junior Karolina Vlckova tied for 14th at even par, and freshman Sam Wagner and junior Kelly Grassel tied for 38th and finished three over-par.
Florida trails No. 12 Arizona and No. 13 Oklahoma for the tournament lead at 1-under par, while Torres finished the opening round just one stroke short of Stanford’s Lauren Kim on the individual leaderboards.
UF will tee off Round 2 at 9 a.m.
"We played solid on some of the challenging stretches of the course, and I thought we managed pretty well," Glaser said. "The forecast is not great for the next couple days, so focus and toughness will be our main goal."
Contact Alfredo Morales at amorales@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @amorales_95.
Maria Torres tees off during the 2015 SunTrust Gator Invitational at UF's Mark Bostick Golf Course.
