With a strong breeze blustering through Legends Club on Friday, the Gators’ first round couldn’t help but get caught up in the bad conditions.
No. 16 Florida struggled through a wet and windy opening day at the Mason Rudolph Fall Preview in Franklin, Tenn., with a team score of 303 (+15), landing it in a four-way tie for eighth-place.
“It could have been better, and it could have been worse. The course was very difficult [Friday],” coach Jan Dowling said. “Overall, our team going into the next few days needs to make sure we’re doing the simple fundamental things a little bit better. If we do that, I think we’re going to play great.”
Southern California sits atop the leaderboard at 4-over, while second-place Arizona State finished one shot back. UCLA, Alabama and tournament-host Vanderbilt are all tied for third with first-round scores of 8-over.
“One thing we talked about today was staying patient,” said Dowling. “On a course that’s set up as difficult as it is and as long as the course played today because of the rain, I thought our team did very well staying patient all day.”
Dowling also attributed the course’s difficultly to its firmer grass and the movement of the tee positions on longer par-4s.
Individually, freshman Camilla Hedberg proved to be a bright spot for UF. Hedberg added onto her strong collegiate debut from a week ago as she finished at 1-over on the par-72, 6,426-yard course after birdying two of her last three holes.
Hedberg is tied for ninth individually with seven other golfers and sits only two shots behind ASU’s Justine Lee.
“To shoot around par today was very respectable,” Dowling said. “[Hedberg] had a stretch of three holes on her front nine where she was 4-over, but she bounced with two birdies in a row. She just showed her inner confidence. She doesn’t get rattled by a couple of bad shots here and there.”
Except for junior Mia Piccio (75, +3), UF’s upperclassmen struggled.
Junior Isabelle Lendl shot a 5-over-72 with only one birdie, while senior Evan Jensen shot 6-over with four bogeys and two double bogeys. Senior Andrea Watts also ended her day 10-over after bogeying eight of her first 12 holes.
The Gators tallied 10 birdies against 26 bogeys and four double bogeys.
Dowling said she believes her team is capable of having a better round today.
“If we play a solid round [today], I think we’re going to move up the leaderboard and give ourselves a chance at a great finish,” she said.
