Shimizu leads UVU women’s golf at GCU Invite
The UVU women’s golf team went down to Phoenix, Ariz. to participate in the Grand Canyon Women’s Spring Invitational on Feb. 23 and 24. Most people would assume that golf in Arizona would have the perfect weather year round, but frost delaying the start of the first round on Saturday proved otherwise.
Junior Kaylee Shimizu led the tournament, placing eighth overall among 108 golfers and first out of the five Wolverines that attended. She carded a 220 which is just 3-over par for three rounds. Her first round was her highest score of 3-over par, as she shot three birdies, a double bogey and four bogeys. She would go on to card a 1-over par in round two and 1-under par in the final round on Sunday.
“So pleased with the grit and focus,” UVU head coach Sue Nyhus said on her Twitter account. “13 wins and 5 losses and a rare under 900 finish, hard work pays off!”
Saturday came to a close before some of the teams were able to finish their first round since frost delayed the start of the round. UVU sat in third place out of 20 teams as the round came to a close early Sunday morning and fell three places to finish sixth at the end of the tournament, carding a combined 897. Each Wolverine finished in the top 40 at the end of round one. Junior Kate Williamson (tied 14 at +7) was the only other Wolverine besides Shimizu, to shoot par or better in any of the three rounds. She shot an even par in the second round with two birdies and two bogeys.
Sunday consisted of a lot of golf, roughly five holes of the remaining first round plus the second and third rounds added up to 41 holes of golf in one day.
For the remaining Wolverines, sophomore Keila Baladad carded 14-over par, tying for 49th with her teammate freshman Nathalie Irlbacher, senior Carly Dehlin Hirsch carded +13 which tied for 43rd place. UVU had a total of 31 birdies among the five players, with Shimizu leading the team in that statistic with 11 birdies total.
The Wolverines were joined by four other WAC teams, Grand Canyon University, who placed fourth, California Baptist placed 11th, Seattle University placed 16th and CSU Bakersfield placed 18th. The GCU Women’s Spring Invitational was played at the GCU Championship Golf Course which has a par of 72 and spans 6,187 yards.
The next tournament for the Wolverines will be 54 holes hosted by BYU at the Snow Canyon Country Club on March 11 and 12.
Photo courtesy of UVU Athletics