After three days of golf at the Auburn Regional, the Georgia women’s golf finished tied for sixth, failing to qualify for the NCAA Championships. They wrapped up the tournament at 28-over 892 and a shot behind both Tulsa and South Carolina – who claimed the final spots advancing to the NCAA Championship.
Coming into the final day, the Bulldogs were sitting right on the line to advance to the championship tied for fifth. They came into day three seeking to advance to the NCAA Championship in pursuit of their fourth straight top-20 finish.
The Bulldogs had a rough start of the tournament, shooting 206 in Monday's opening round. This placed them at eighth on the team leaderboard. On Tuesday, they slowly climbed up the leaderboard shooting a 2-over 290 to put themselves back in contention to qualify.
“My head was like ‘this is not how I’m going to go out,’” said Caterina Don. “I made two bad swings in a row and the next tee shot was not my favorite shot on the course. Once I hit it down the middle, I was like “let’s go.’ I mean, it happens. I knew there were going to be some birdie chances out there. In my mind I was thinking I just made three bogeys in a row. You’re going to make three bogeys at some point so I just kept going.”
Georgia selected six golfers to travel to Auburn to compete in the Regional. These included Napat Lertsadwattana, Don, Savannah De Bock, LoraLie Cowart, Bernice Olivarez Ilas and substitute Natachanok Tunwannarux. Don finished her career at Georgia tied for 13th, the highest on the individual leaderboard for the Bulldogs.
“We put ourselves in a tough spot on day one,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “We tried to battle and had ourselves in position and just unfortunately finished kinda the same way we started the tournament. It’s sad to send these seniors off that way, but they had their chances. Unfortunately, we didn’t shoot the right scores when we needed it.”
The Bulldogs concluded their season ranked No. 23 with 11 top-10 finishes. Don and De Bock received All-SEC honors. Georgia has decided to part ways with Brewer and will start the search for a new coach immediately.