Wake Forest University
LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic
Demon Deacons Lead After First Round of LSU/Cleveland Classic
3/13/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
March 13, 2009
First Round Results | Tournament Blog
BATON ROUGE, La. - The No. 7 Wake Forest women's golf team continued its strong play this spring with an impressive round of 4-under 284 to take the opening round lead at the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic.
Wake was led by sophomore Natalie Sheary, who fired a 3-under par 69 and senior Jean Chua who finished at 1-under par. The other three players, senior Nannette Hill, junior Dolores White and freshman Cheyenne Woods, all finished at even-par. It was only the second time in school-history that all five players were at par of better.
The round of 284 was also tied for the fourth-best 18-hole team score in school history. The other two previous rounds of 284 were also shot at the University Club in Baton Rouge in the first and second round of the NCAA East Regionals in 2007.
"This was a very good day for us and a great team effort," said Wake Forest head coach Dianne Dailey. "We got off to a bit of a slow start but I told the students to just keep grinding and not to worry. I knew there were scores out there.
The Deacs certainly hung tough as they were a combined 7-under on the back nine including 4-under on the par-3 16th.
Sheary had started her day with 11-straight pars before a birdie on No. 13 followed by another at No. 14 dropped her to 2-under. She capped off her round with a third birdie on No. 18 to finish with a career-low tying round of 69. Sheary will start the second round in fourth place.
"Natalie played really solid today," Dailey said. "She had numerous opportunities for birdies in the first few holes but the putts just didn't drop. She stayed patient and was able to get a couple to drop down the stretch."
Chua, who was making her first start of the spring, was 2-over through her first three holes but made birdies on her ninth and tenth holes of the day to get back to even-par. She then made a birdie on the par-3 16th hole, her 14th hole of the day to lift her to 1-under. She made four pars to finish with a round of 1-under 71.
Woods made three birdies and three bogies in her round of even-par while both White and Hill would offset two bogies with two birdies for their rounds of even-par 72.
"It was a good day all around because everyone grinded so well," said Dailey. "Dolores (White) struggled a bit with her irons but she got up-and-down nine times and only had 25 putts. The team showed great mental toughness and that's what it takes to take an average round and make it a great round."
Wake leads ACC-foe Virginia by one shot as the Cavaliers shot a 3-under 285. The Hoos were led by Callie Nielson, who carded a round of 5-under 67 to take the individual lead by one shot over a pair of players.
A total of four teams wound up breaking par on the day. The tournament was supposed to start with tee times this morning but the threat of rain forced the field into a shotgun start. Fortunately the rain never came and the conditions were right for scoring.
"This is the type of course where you need to go out and shoot low scores to be competitive," Dialey continued. "We need to continue to play well the rest of the tournament to have a chance in such a strong field. This was a good start though."
The threat of bad weather is in the forecast for Saturday as well and once again, the action will get underway with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. CT. Live scoring of both the second and third rounds can be found at www.golfstat.com.
Players Mentioned
