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2022 SEC Champions
2022 SEC CHAMPIONSHIPS
LSU WINS FOR FIRST TIME IN 30 YEARS; LINDBLAD CAPTURES INDIVIDUAL TITLE
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – It seemed like it was meant to be.
The work. The long hours on the course. The patience to withstand another rain delay two hours into the championship match. It all was there for LSU when junior Latanna Stone made a short put on 18 to win the hole, win her match 2UP and clinch the 2022 Southeastern Conference Women’s Golf Championship for LSU.
The title was the Tigers first in women’s golf in 30 years. In 1992, Coach Karen Bahnsen and players Page Oeser, Kristi Coats, Julie Rigazio, Jennifer Vernon and Laurie Robbins captured the championships held at Santa Maria in Baton Rouge.
At the Greystone Country Club’s Legacy Club, Coach Garrett Runion and assistant Alexis Rather and players Stone, Ingrid Lindblad, Carla Tejedo, Elsa Svensson and Jess Bailey along with alternate Presley Baggett made sure this time another SEC Championship trophy was making the six-hour sprinter van journey back to Baton Rouge.
LSU won the match, 4-1, with three match wins to clinch the title and two matches that were tied at the end of the competition. The teams again had some weather issues as the match was suspended some 2:17 into play for just over two hours before play resumed shortly after noon.
“Obviously it was an unbelievable week,” said Coach Runion. “When I think about this week, I really think about all the players before. The SEC has a slogan, ‘It Just Means More.’ It really does, so it makes me think about all the players before that helped us get to this point. We had a lot of former players calling and texting and coming out here. It was a great week that they will never forget. I certainly won’t.”
The break came just after Lindblad in the third match had birdied the seventh hole to take a 2UP lead over Annabell Fuller. When play resumed Lindblad won the par 3 eighth with a par, the par 4 ninth with a par and the par 4 10th hole with a birdie en route to an easy 6&5 win that ended the match on Hole 13.
“We’ve been talking about hitting fairways, hitting the greens, putting pressure on your opponent and trying to make birdies,” the native of Halmstad, Sweden, who on Friday started the trophy haul by winning LSU’s first individual title in 31 years, told the SEC Network. “I feel like I hit the fairways, hit the greens today. The holes where we came back, I made putts from seven or eight feet and that felt good.”
With Tejedo in the lead from the seventh hole when she birdied to a 4&2 triumph over Marina Escobar that made her 3-0-0 on the weekend in match play, attention turned to three matches with Svensson, Stone and Bailey.
Svensson’s match with Carla Mazalini was close throughout with several ties before Mazalini took the lead on 13th. The freshman was able to get it back even on the 17th and the pair halved the 18 to force extra holes which were not completed.
The clinching match swung Stone’s way after falling 1 Down on the par 5 11th hole. It remained that way until the 14th when Stone’s par evened the match with Maisie Fuller. The lead that gave LSU the championship came on the par 3 17th hole when the Riverview, Florida native made an 18-foot birdie putt to take a 1UP lead. Stone’s approach on 18 was in tight and her putt dropping in the hole started a celebration of purple and gold on the 18th green.
Lindblad’s big win also allowed the LSU coaches to stay with other closer matches.
“To have Ingrid just come out of the rain delay and have full control was huge because it allowed Alexis and me to focus on the other people in the tighter matches and that’s what we did,” said Runion. “Alexis did an excellent job hanging back with Jess and Latanna, I was kind of up front with Carla and Elsa. The start of the day was a dream start as well."
Two days earlier, Lindblad won LSU’s first individual SEC championship in 31 years with a spectacular eagle three on the final hole. Lindblad rallied from third place at the start of the day with a 6-under 66 to finish at 10-under 206 for the 54-hole event.
Lindblad was down one stroke entering the final hole, a 478-yard par 5. Lindblad and Coach Garrett Runion looked at the yardage (some 220 yards) then appeared to look at Runion’s phone and possibly the Golfstat scoring, and Lindblad made the decision to go for it all.
With the wind swirling against Lindblad, she took a 5-wood and took her best shot. The ball appeared to head right but faded back to the right corner of the green, leaving her a tricky putt of some 38 feet for eagle. Lindblad left the flagstick in and she let it die right in the center for an eagle and what would be a one stroke victory.
Kristi Coats was the last LSU winner of the SEC individual championship in 1991. Coats shot 224 to win the event in Lexington, Kentucky.
SEC CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL LSU 4, FLORIDA 1 (Tied matches are half a point for each team) 1. Carla Tejedo (LSU) 4&2 over Marina Escobar (FLA) 2. Elsa Svensson (LSU) TIED with Carla Mazalini (FLA) 3. Ingrid Lindblad (LSU) 6&5 over Annabell Fuller (FLA) 4. Latanna Stone (LSU) 2UP over Maisie Fuller (FLA) 5. Jessica Bailey (LSU) TIED with Jackie Lucena (FLA)
LSU’S PATH TO THE SEC CHAMPIONSHIP SEC Stroke Play (3 rounds)
2nd in field of 14, 866 (+2)
Match Play
4/15-16 Quarterfinal – (2) LSU def. (7) Vanderbilt, 4-1 4/16 Semifinal – (2) LSU def. (6) Alabama, 3.5-1.5 4/17 Final – (2) LSU def. (5) Florida, 4-1 (match suspended for ~ 2 hours by rain)
