Cullowhee, N.C. – Looking to add an exclamation point to a historic 2022-23 season that includes four team victories and eight combined podium finishes, the Western Carolina women's golf team opens play in the inaugural National Golf Invitational (NGI) presented by
Golfweek on Friday (May 12) at the par-72, 6,318-yard Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Ariz.
In addition to the Catamounts, fellow Southern Conference member Mercer is
among the 10 teams selected for the first-ever tournament. The field also includes Grand Canyon (WAC), Iowa (Big Ten), Middle Tennessee (C-USA), Penn State (Big Ten), Santa Clara (WCC), Seattle (WAC), Texas State (Sun Belt), and UC Riverside (Big West).
The tournament gets underway at 10:30 a.m. ET / 7:30 a.m. MST with tee times off the No. 1 tee box on Friday. Paired with golfers from league-foe Mercer and Santa Clara, the three-player groupings open at 11:41 a.m. ET / 8:41 a.m. locally with WCU's fifth golfer opening the tournament at 12:13 p.m. ET / 9:13 a.m. MST.
Live scoring through GolfStat is available online at CatamountSports.com.
"I am beyond proud of everything this team has accomplished this year," said WCU head coach
Courtney Gunter. "Being invited to the first-ever National Golf Invitational crosses off our final goal of the season which was making it to the postseason. Together as a team, we came up with our overall vision for the season, with smaller goals we wanted to reach to get us there."
A year in the making through a partnership with
Golfweek and the Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club, the first-ever NGI will feature the same format as the NCAA tournament with five golfers playing with the top four scores from each round. Each school is permitted a sixth golfer as an alternate that can be substituted before the start of an 18-hole round.
Fifth-year senior
Madison Isaacson, who paced WCU most recently at the SoCon Championship with a fourth-place finish, leads the Catamount scoring five into the postseason. She is flanked by the SoCon's Freshman of the Year in
Brie Mapanao as the second seed. Mapanao led WCU and ranked third in the conference in seasonal scoring average at 73.78. Sophomore
Elizabeth Lohbauer is seeded third with senior
Victoria Ladd and sophomore
Kaitlyn Wingnean rounding out the Catamount side. Redshirt sophomore
Kayleigh Baker is traveling as the alternate sixth golfer.
Three of WCU's scorers ranked inside the top five in scoring average this season with Mapanao, Lohbauer (4th, 73.85), and Isaacson (5th, 74.11) leading the Catamounts through 27 seasonal rounds.
"I've said this before and I'll definitely say it again – each of these players worked together as a team – not individuals – to reach every goal we set this year," added Gunter. "As a coach, I couldn't be prouder. I hope that they're able to truly enjoy competing this week and remember that all the hard work they put in this season led them to this event."
The Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club is located on the Ak-Chin Indian Reservation among the desert of the Santa Cruz Valley in southern Arizona, roughly 40 miles south of Phoenix. The course was ranked as the fifth-best to play in Arizona by Golf magazine. The dunes-style layout features towering mounds and hollow valleys for a scenic game with wide fairways, strategically placed sand bunkers, multi-tiered greens, and native grass roughs.
This year marks just the third time in program history that Catamount women's golf is in action beyond the conference championship, garnering the program's first at-large berth into a postseason event. WCU has twice claimed the Southern Conference's automatic bid into the NCAA postseason. The 2003 squad played in the East Regional held at the Salem Glen Country Club in Winston-Salem, N.C., with the 2007 squad competing in the East Regional in Baton Rouge, La.
Like the National Invitation Tournament (NIT or WNIT) in basketball, the school is responsible for covering the associated team travel costs to participate in the event. Many have previously donated to Catamount Athletics, and that generosity is greatly appreciated – WCU asks donors to consider supporting women's golf now to help the team attend this historic tournament.
Any donations directly benefit the women's golf program and are tax-deductible. Donations can be made online by clicking
HERE, or through the Catamount Club office at 828-227-3047.
Keep track of everything related to Catamount women's golf and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com/catamountsports), Instagram (@wcu_catamounts), and Twitter (@catamounts, @CatamountWGolf).
