FALL RECAP BULLDOGS PLAY SOME OF UGA’S BEST GOLF EVER IN FALL With the same roster in place that swept the team and individual titles at the NCAA Columbus Regional last spring, much was expected of the Georgia women’s golf team when the Bulldogs opened their fall season. Those Bulldogs didn’t disappoint in 2021 and appear lined up for another outstanding season in 2022 that will hopefully culminate with an even deeper run in the NCAA Championships. The toughest challenge for head coach Josh Brewer and first-year assistant coach Caroline Westrup may be a task to accomplish before they ever leave the UGA campus – deciding on the Bulldogs’ lineup. Georgia’s roster is overflowing with stellar competitive resumes, with golfers listing appearances in the sports greatest events such as the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, World Team Amateur, Junior Olympics and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur over and over again. The Bulldogs’ 10-deep roster features graduate Alison Crenshaw; seniors Jenny Bae, Jo Hua Hung and Zoë Walker; juniors Céleste Dao, Caterina Don Caroline Craig and Candice Mahé; sophomore Isabella Holpfer; and freshman LoraLie Cowart. Brewer, who welcomes healthy competition, knew won’t have any issues establishing that during qualifying. That trait helped the Bulldogs enjoy historic success in the fall. In the second round of the season at the Cougar Classic, Georgia posted a schoolrecord 14-under 274 at Yeamans Hall. Bae, Craig and Holpfer all fired 2-under 68s and Don posted a 2-under 70 to round out the Bulldogs’ counting tallies. Amazingly, Georgia’s playing five actually shot 15-under on the day, with Hung’s 1-under effort serving as the drop score. “We know you’re not going to shoot 14-under every day,” Brewer said. “We knew we had the firepower to play like this and now we’ve done it. It’s a tell-tale sign of the depth we have. We threw out a 71. If you look at really good teams, they have to have five players to play like we did today. We feel like we have 10 players that could help us play like we did today. We’re working on a process and not worry about posting a score. The process we’re trying to complete went really well today.” That process again went really well later in the. The Bulldogs shot 15-under 849 – the secondbest tournament score in school history – en route to winning the team title at the Illini Invitational at historic Medinah Country Club in October. Georgia sandwiched a pair of 6-under 282’s around a 3-under 285 to capture the 15th team title during Brewer’s tenure in Athens. “I think we were the one team in the field that was up around first or second for the entire tournament,” Brewer added. “Both days, everyone was chasing us. Everyone was chasing us from the moment we teed off to the final putt. With the shotgun start, which was what had to happen under these circumstances, we didn’t get to look the people in the eye we were competing against. 6 • 2021-22 georgia golf
GEORGIA GOLF FALL 2021 RESULTS DATES TOURNAMENT (COURSE/LOCATION) TEAM RESULT TOP INDIVIDUAL 9/13-14 Cougar Classic 4th (852) Bae (3rd – 208) Yeamans Hall Club (72, 6301) in Charleston, S.C. 9/24-26 Mason Rudolph Championship T-6th (866) Hung (5th – 209) Vanderbilt Legends Club (72, 6475) in Franklin, Tenn. 10/11-12 Illini Invitational T-1st (849) Holpfer (T-6th – 211) Medinah Country Club (72, 6169) in Medinah, Ill. 10/15-17 Stanford Intercollegiate 13th (891) Holpfer (T-26th – 217) Stanford Golf Course (71, 6269) in Palo Alto, Calif.
GEORGIA GOLF FALL 2021 STATISTICS Cnt. POB Low Low Top Best Player Events Rds. Strokes Avg. Pct. Rds. 18 54 10 / 20 Finish Jenny Bae 4 10 714 71.40 85.0 5 67 (-5) 208 (-8) 1 / 2 3rd – Cougar Jo Hua Hung 860 71.67 88.9 9 66 (-6) 209 (-7) 1 / 3 5th – Mason R. * 4 12 Isabella Holpfer 4 12 867 72.75 91.7 6 68 (-4) 211 (-5) 1 / 1 6th – Illini Caroline Craig 4 12 878 73.17 75.0 6 68 (-4) 213 (-3) 0 / 1 13th – Illini Caterina Don 4 12 881 73.42 87.5 4 70 (-2) 215 (-1) 0 / 0 23rd – Illini Zoë Walker 3 219 73.00 1 71 (-1) 219 (+3) 0 / 0 42nd – Illini *1 Candice Mahé 1 3 225 75.00 33.3 1 71 (-1) 225 (+9) 0 / 0 66th – Mason R. TEAM TOTALS 4 12 3458 288.17 7 274 (-14) 849 (-15) 3 / 4 1ST – ILLINI INDIVIDUAL TOTALS 4 64 4724 73.81 32 66 (-6) 208 (-8) 3 / 7 3RD – Cougar *- Competed individually – Hung at Mason Rudolph; Walker at Illini Invitational
I think we would’ve enjoyed that, but at the same time, a win’s a win.” Days after the victory in Illinois, Georgia’s fall season unfortunately ended on a sour note. The Bulldogs finished 13th at the Stanford Intercollegiate, doing so with a play-four, count-four lineup for the final two rounds. That outing pushed Georgia, which spent the entire fall ranked among the nation’s top-20 teams, back to the high 20s in the final Golfstat and Golfweek fall rankings. “College golf rankings can get skewed when something happens like playing four instead of five or even having to withdraw from a tournament,” Brewer said. “We look at our first three events of the fall as a better indicator of our team.”
HUNG CRANKS OUT POBs
Senior Jo Hua Hung enjoyed an amazingly impressive and consistent fall campaign. In 12 rounds, Hung carded par-or-better scores nine times. In fact, the aforementioned depth actually hurt the Bulldogs at the Mason Rudolph Championship. Hung found herself on the outside looking in at Georgia’s lineup for Vanderbilt’s tourney and competed as an individual. Hung went on to be the Bulldogs’ top individual finisher by shooting 7-under 209 to place fifth. If she would have been in the lineup, Hung’s scores would have lowered Georgia’s team score by 13 strokes and vaulted the Bulldogs from sixth to third on the team leaderboard.
BAE SELECTED BY USGA
Jenny Bae was one of 12 golfers who took part in the USGA’s International Team Selection Working Group practice session on January 15-16 at Mountain Lake in Lake Wales, Fla. The players were vying for spots on the United States team for the 42nd Curtis Cup Match, which will take place June 10-12, at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa.
Bae was a combined 5-under over 10 rounds during Georgia’s fall campaign. The senior from Suwanee, Ga., earned All-America honors last season after finishing as Georgia’s top individual in six of 11 tournaments. She captured medalist honors at the NCAA Columbus Regional and was the Bulldogs’ top finisher at the NCAA Championships. Bae enjoyed a stellar summer headlined by a trio of victories in a one-week span. She posted an 11-under tally en route to a 5-stroke victory at the Georgia Women’s Amateur Championship on June 30. The next morning, Bae began another wire-to-wire win by shooting 6-under 136 on her way to winning the Georgia Women’s Open. Three days after that, she fired a 5-under 67 to capture medalist honors at a U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifier on July 5. At the U.S. Women’s Am, Bae tied for 12th over two days of stroke play qualifying and advanced to the Round of 16 of match play before falling to eventual champion Jensen Castle. The Curtis Cup Match is contested between two teams of eight female amateur players, one from the U.S. and one from Great Britain and Ireland and consists of six foursomes (alternate-shot) matches, six four-ball matches and eight singles matches over three days of competition. Traditionally, the Curtis Cup is held every two years; however, the 2020 edition was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All told, Georgia golfers have competed in eight previous Curtis Cups, seven times for the U.S. and once for GB&I. Terri Moody was UGA’s first participant in 1980 followed by Cindy Schreyer in 1986, Vicki Goetze in 1990 and 1992, Angela Jerman in 2992, Taylor Leon in 2006, Krystle Caithness (GB&I) in 2008 and Bailey Tardy in 2016. Bae received additional good news in early 2022 when she was included among the invitees to compete in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur later this spring.
