Texas Tech University Athletics
Texas Tech To Hit The Links
June 21, 1999 | Women's Golf
May 4, 1999
LUBBOCK, Texas - The 42nd-ranked Texas Tech women's golf team will begin play in the NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championship West Regional on May 6-8 at the Pine Forest Country Club in Houston, Texas.
Twenty teams will play fifty-four holes at the 6119 yard, par 72 course. Texas A&M is the host school. The top 10 teams and two individuals will advance to the NCAA Championships on May 19-22 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, joining the top nine teams and two individuals from the NCAA East Regional.
All twenty teams in the field are ranked among the nations Top 50, including seven teams in the Top 10, in the latest MasterCard team rankings. No. 2 ranked Arizona is the top-rated team in the field. The Wildcats are followed by Tulsa (4th), USC (5th), Arizona State (6th), Oklahoma State (7th), TCU (8th), Stanford (9th), Pepperdine (11th), Texas (12th), Washington (13th), UCLA (16th), Oregon (21st), New Mexico State (22nd), San Jose State (25th), Oregon State (27th), Missouri (32nd), San Diego State (33rd), New Mexico (35th), Texas A&M (39th) and Texas Tech (42nd).
Thirteen of the Top 20 individual players in the MasterCard Individual Rankings are expected to participate, including 1998 NCAA champion and current No. 1-ranked in the nation Jennifer Rosales of USC and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Grace Park of Arizona State.
Texas Tech is coming off a third place showing at the Big 12 Championship. The Red Raiders fell five strokes short of champion and No. 7-ranked Oklahoma State and were three strokes behind No. 12 Texas. The No. 42 Red Raiders finished ahead of No. 32 Missouri and No. 39 Texas A&M.
Senior Brooke Lowrance was tied for the lead at the Big 12 Championship after regulation play but fell in a playoff to Oklahoma State's Maria Boden. Senior Beth Covington tied for 16th at the event. Junior Jamie Vannoy tied for 22nd, freshman Jennifer Newhouse tied for 25th and junior Heather Wrede came in 38th place.
Lowrance leads the team in stroke average at 76.8. She is followed closely by Vannoy, who boasts a 77.3 average. Both have finished in the top 10 of tournaments three times this season, which is tops on the squad.
