Women's golf finishes 11th in trip to Wilmington

This weekend, the North Carolina women’s golf team faced less-than-ideal conditions, and like the weather, the Tar Heels’ performance was equally unfavorable.

The Tar Heels traveled to Wilmington this weekend to participate in the 12th annual Landfall Tradition tournament hosted by UNC-Wilmington.

The team finished the three-day tournament shooting 60-over-par, tying 11th place overall with Notre Dame and Ohio State.

High scores were prevalent among all 18 teams that participated in the tournament. Not one team finished the weekend under par, and No. 10 Alabama walked away as the champions of the tournament with a score of three-over-par.

Stephanie Meadow of Alabama, who shot three-under par on the weekend to finish first among individuals, and Yu Liu of Duke, were the only golfers to finish the weekend with a score under par.

Senior Jackie Chang, who was UNC’s highest finisher in 21st place with a score of 10-over-par, said that the high scores could be directly correlated with the chilly conditions that the course presented.

“I think the course played really hard this past weekend — especially the first couple of days with the wind and the cold,” Chang said. “It’s hard to start out well when you’re bundled up and swinging. I think they had a lot of tough pin positions too.

“Overall, the course was just playing pretty hard. The scores definitely reflected that throughout the whole field.”

Sophomore Elizabeth Mallett shot 12-over-par to finish tied for 27th place. She mentioned that the weather conditions this weekend were much more arduous than they were when the team played its practice round at the par 72, 6,244-yard course last weekend.

“I think the change in the weather had a big impact on the way the course was playing,” Mallett said. “When we played (the practice round) it wasn’t this cold. I think that had an impact on how far the ball flied. The course played a lot longer this time.”

The Landfall Tradition caps what has been a less-than-ideal fall season for the Tar Heels.

The team culminates its fall season having finished no higher than sixth place in a tournament, which the team accomplished at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tenn.

Despite the team’s performance this weekend and this fall in general, assistant coach Leah Wigger said that the Tar Heels can build off of these early trials and use them as a stepping-stone towards the spring season.

“Just take it as a learning experience,” Wigger said. “We can’t always be perfect every time we go out there — we’re going to struggle. Sometimes you’re going to fight through rounds or just have easy rounds.

“Either way, we are going to learn from the experience of the fall, figure out what we need to work on — for everybody — and come out in the spring with guns blazing and win some tournaments.”

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