Golf is rarely considered a team sport, but the Florida women’s golf team will have to play as one at the Liz Murphy Collegiate Classic.
The event is adopting a new format where all five players of each team play their rounds together rather than divided up into groups as usual. Instead of calculating each team’s score by adding up the four best rounds, the four lowest scores from each hole will be included in the team total.
In golf, perhaps the ultimate individual sport, it is a big adjustment for players to be paired alongside teammates with whom they practice on a regular basis.
But the Gators have been preparing for this mental test.
“We’ve played together for three rounds,” UF coach Jan Dowling said. “We’ve really learned how to play together as a team, which isn’t something we usually do.”
Florida has had a four-week layoff since early March, when it won the Gator Invitational by 17 strokes. UF won on the strength of top-10 individual finishes by Mia Piccio, Evan Jensen, and Isabelle Lendl, who all tied for seventh.
The team’s success this season has been due in large part to Piccio. The sophomore had a busy fall schedule that included tournaments in China and Argentina in addition to the five she competed in for Florida.
Piccio’s consistency has been her strongest attribute. She has finished in the top 20 of every spring tournament, including a top-10 showing at the Gator Invitational.
“When she plays well, we usually have a pretty good tournament as a team,” Dowling said.
The Gators will be looking to build on their finish at the Gator Invitational, using the Liz Murphey Classic as a springboard heading into the SEC and NCAA Championships in the coming weeks.
