No. 12 Baylor WGOLF Set for the Sixth-Straight Regional Appearance

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Before Sunday's practice round, the 6,405-yard, par-72 layout at Palouse Ridge Golf Club was completely foreign to Jay Goble and his 12^th-ranked Baylor women's golf team heading into the Pullman (Wash.) Regional that begins Monday.
            "I don't know exactly what to expect," said Goble, whose team is seeded second in the 12-team field for the 54-hole tournament. "It looks kind of more like a links course in the surrounding mountains. I would say that Palos Verdes in California (is similar). The way the terrain is up and down a lot looks like where we're going."
            What Goble and the Bears like, though, is conditions calling for temperatures dipping into the 40s and 50s, gusty winds and a chance for rain. Strangely, that's their comfort zone. Like Elsa sang in the movie Frozen: "Let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway."
            "Growing up in Iowa, I think our high school golf season, typically the first three weeks or month or so, we played snow as casual water," said junior Britta Snyder from Ames, Iowa, "and you couldn't take the pins out of the hole because the cups were frozen like three inches deep. So, 50 degrees doesn't really sound that bad."
            Besides Snyder and sophomore Sera Hasegawa from Japan, the remainder of Baylor's five-player lineup is from Northern Europe – senior Hannah Karg from Germany, junior Rosie Belsham from England and freshman Silje Ohma from Norway.
            "I have a lot of players from Northern Europe, and I don't think the cool, damp weather will affect any of us very much," Goble said. "I think in a lot of ways, it probably makes it better for us and exciting for them. I do know the grass up there is bent grass, which we're used to at Ridgewood. But besides that, this is an all-new experience for me going to Washington state."
            In fact, with Baylor playing a practice round on Saturday at Couer d'Alene Resort Golf Course in Idaho, Goble gets to check off two of the last four states that he had never visited. All that's left are Alaska and Maine, "and I don't see myself going to Alaska anytime soon."
            "I feel like we all have the knowledge of how to play these golf courses, especially when it gets to the 50s, the 60s, it's cold, might get a little rain," said Karg, coming off a sixth-place finish at the Big 12 Championship, joining Ohma on the all-tournament team.
            "I feel like that's where everybody on our team feels comfortable, like quite naturally, because we're used to it. I feel like we will do fine, I'm pretty sure."
            Coming off a tie for ninth at the Big 12 tournament, Ohma will play out of the No. 1 spot in her NCAA postseason debut. One of three players with a scoring average below 72 (71.72), Ohma has had five top-10 finishes in nine tournaments this season and has made birdie or better on a team-best 20.2% of her holes.
            Second on the team with a 71.56-stroke average, Belsham will play at No. 2 this week. She has posted top-25 finishes in seven of her nine events this season, including medalist honors at the College Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico.
            Snyder, who tied for second last year in the Stillwater Regional, moves up to the No. 3 spot this week. She had a top-5 finish at the Match in the Desert and tied for 16^th at the Big 12 tournament.
            "I think we're on the rise right now," Snyder said. "We had a lot of good scores at Big 12's, and I think we showed how deep we are as a lineup in these last couple of tournaments. We're all out here grinding. We're putting school behind us, and we're just ready to focus on golf and put some good scores out there."
            Hasegawa, a transfer from East Tennessee State, is making her NCAA regional debut at No. 4. She has a team-best 71.19-stroke average and is second in birdie-or-better percentage, finishing under par on 20% of her 378 holes played this season.
            "I think there's a sense of relief, knowing that your teammates have your back," Snyder said. "I also think the important thing is we're able to motivate each other, because we can all play No. 1 or we can all be No. 5. We all want to edge each other out, but to push each other in the best way possible in practice and on the course."
            Tying for 35^th last year in Stillwater, Karg is making second-career start at an NCAA Regional and is playing in the No. 5 spot.
            "We have very competitive people on our team," Karg said. "I'm a senior, I just want to finish off on a good note. Even my teammates, they want to do everything they can in helping me to maybe finish off as strong as we can."
            Playing in its 10^th NCAA regional in the last 11 possible years and 20^th overall, all since 2000, Baylor is trying to qualify for the NCAA Championship for the sixth time in the last eight tournaments. The top five teams from each of the six regionals advance to the NCAA Championship May 19-24 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
            Stanford is the No. 1 seed in the Pullman Regional, followed by Baylor, USC, Clemson, Kentucky, Texas Tech, Houston, North Carolina, UNLV, Sacramento State, Cal Poly and Green Bay.
            "I think we rank right up there with the best teams in that field, obviously, but we're only going to try to control our business and go out there and play golf the way we know how. And if we do that, we're going to advance easily."
            Paired with Stanford and USC, Baylor will have tee times starting at 10 a.m. CT off the No. 1 tee box.

PULLMAN, Wash. – No. 12 Baylor women's golf will open play at the Pullman regional on Monday morning as the No. 2 seed at Palouse Ridge Golf Club.

While BU is making its first appearance this season in the state of Washington, it has faced seven of the 11 teams in the regional, boasting a 7-5-1 mark against those squads. Head coach Jay Goble has taken his team from coast to coast this season to prepare them to play anywhere, anytime.

"I think they're fighters," he said. "If you look where we've played well, it's been on really hard golf courses. We won at Guadalajara, where the winning score was over par. We played well at Palos Verdes in California, where the winning score was over par. That's going to help us moving forward because as the golf courses and the situations get more challenging, we do a great job of rising to the occasion."

Coming off a tie for ninth and a Big 12 All-Tournament Team selection, freshman Silje Ohma makes her NCAA postseason debut at the No. 1 spot. Ohma leads the team in below-par percentage, making birdie or better on 20.2% of holes this season.

Rosie Belsham will play at No. 2 this week after being one of the most consistent players in the lineup. The junior has finished in the top-25 in seven of her nine events this season and has made par or better on nearly 83% of holes.

Britta Snyder will play at No. 3 this week, her highest position in the lineup since she played at No. 1 at the Match in the Desert in January. Snyder tied for second last season in the Stillwater Regional at Karsten Creek, marking her career-best finish. The junior feels like the strength of this team is in the depth of the lineup.

"I think there is a sense of relief knowing that your teammates have your back," she said. "I also think that we're able to motivate each other because we're all competing for our spots. Any of us can all play at No. 1, or any of us could play at No. 5. We all want to edge each other out, but to push each other in the best way possible at practice and on the course."

Sera Hasegawa will make her NCAA regional debut out of the No. 4 position. The sophomore transfer is second on the team in birdie-or-better percentage, finishing under par on 20% of her 378 holes played this season.

Hannah Karg will play at No. 5, making her second-career start in an NCAA Regional, coming off a tie for 35^th last season at Karsten Creek. Karg finished in a tie for sixth at the Big 12 Championship, earning all-tournament team honors. The senior, embarking on her final postseason run, feels more confident as the difficulty and conditions ratchet up.

"We know how to play those golf courses, especially when the temperatures get into the 50s and 60s, or it's cold and rainy. I feel like that's where everybody on our team feels comfortable because we are used to it."

Pairings, live stats and scoring will be available at Golfstat.com. For more information on Baylor Women's Golf, follow @BaylorWGolf on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

—BaylorBears.com—

No. 12 Baylor WGOLF Set for the Sixth-Straight Regional Appearance

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Players Mentioned

Rosie Belsham

Sera Hasegawa

Hannah Karg

Silje Ohma

Britta Snyder

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