BYU Begins Spring Season in Arizona

TUCSON -- BYU Women's Golf teed off its spring season in the Arizona Invitational among 18 top-ranked teams. Six of these teams are ranked among the top 20 teams in the country.

The Cougars shot 317 to place them tied for 14th with UNLV after a 7:30 a.m. shot-gun start on Monday at Arizona National G.C. This par 71 and 6,238 yard course is most challenging in every way.

"Not only is it playing extremely long for us, but it is also a target golf course, which gave us some trouble and caused us to struggle a little bit," said head coach Sue Nyhus. "As bad as we played, we didn't shoot ourselves out of it.

The good news is, although the Cougars sit tied for 14th out of 18 teams, they are only four shots out of the top-10 and 10 shots out of the top-six.

BYU's leading Cougar was sophomore Natalie Newren shooting a 76 (35-41) to tie for 28th. Freshman Catalina Guacaneme also stayed in the 70s finishing with 79 (36-43) to tie for 47th. Sophomore Margaret Gibby and freshman Symantha Mendenhall struggled the most with 80 and 86, which was out of the ordinary for the two. And freshman Danielle von Arnim shot 82 (42-40).

"Our problem was just getting started and finding momentum," Nyhus said. "We teed off the back nine, which was actually the front nine, got behind and did not ever recover. We had a great practice session after the round and I'm sure Symantha and Margaret will make a big jump back tomorrow."

Arizona State leads the tournament with a six-over-par 290 and four shots ahead of Pepperdine. Tuesday's round begins with a 7:30 a.m. shotgun off both the first and 10th tee.

Fin. Top 20 Teams Scores

1 Arizona State U. 290

2 Pepperdine Univ. 294

3 Vanderbilt Univ. 297

Arizona, U. of 297

5 UCLA 299

6 New Mexico State U. 307

Tennessee, U. of 307

8 Southern California 308

9 Washington, U. of 310

10 Colorado State Univ. 313

11 San Jose State Univ 314

Arkansas, U. of 314

13 Stanford University 315

14 UNLV 317

Brigham Young Univ. 317

16 Southern Methodist 320

17 Colorado, U. of 325

18 Northern Arizona U. 327

T 14 Brigham Young Univ. 317

T 28 Natalie Newren 35- 41 76

T 47 Catalina Guacaneme 36- 43 79

T 57 Margaret Gibby 36- 44 80

T 76 Danielle von Arnim 42- 40 82

T 91 Symantha Mendenhall 45- 41 86