
No. 13 WGOLF Set for the Big 12 Championship
4/20/2023 11:36:00 AM | Women's Golf
BU returns to the site of its second-place finish in 2018
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Looking for just its second-ever Big 12 championship and first in eight years, the 13th-ranked Baylor women's golf team is seeded second for the Big 12 Championship that starts Friday morning at the Dallas Athletic Club.
Second on the team with a 71.23-stroke average with three top-5 finishes, junior Rosie Belsham said the Bears are "100% the best team in the Big 12."
"We have such a strong team that winning this year would just be unreal," said Belsham, who won medalist honors at the Collegiate Invitational two months ago in Guadalajara, Mexico.
With six top-5 finishes, including a team win at the Collegiate Invitational, coach Jay Goble believes the Bears have "played well enough throughout the year that they deserve to be confident and should be confident."
"We haven't won it in eight years, but we've been knocking on the door for a long time now," Goble said. "I do feel that if this team plays their game, we can really move the needle on Sunday."
As strong as Baylor's team is, the Big 12 might be "as deep as they've ever been in women's golf," Goble said.
Texas is ranked ninth and won the Big 12 Match Play two weeks ago in Arizona. Iowa State is ranked 16th and set the NCAA record for a 54-hole tournament with a 60-under-par 804 two months ago at the MountainView Collegiate, while Oklahoma State (25th), Texas Tech (32nd) and TCU (49th) are all in the top 50. Kansas is 52nd, but made it to the Match Play final.
"We're not going to take any of that for granted," Goble said, "but we are going to focus on and concentrate on our game, because we can't focus on anything that anyone else does. But if we do that, we're going to be in a good place on Sunday."
Like Belsham, senior Hannah Karg and junior Britta Snyder are playing in their third Big 12 tournaments. They both recorded top-20 individual finishes at last year's tournament to help the Bears to their fourth-consecutive top-3 finish, tying Oklahoma State for second place and just three shots behind Texas.
"Even though we're a young team, we do have some experience traveling with us," said Goble, who is taking sophomore BaiMai Seema as an alternate. "Those players have played in a national championship, they've played in a couple of Big 12 Championships. They know that taking care of their controllables and playing golf the way they know how is the only thing they can do. I feel confident that they're going to keep everybody loose and ready to go."
Making their first trip to the Big 12 Championship are sophomore transfer Sera Hasegawa and freshman Silje Ohma. Hasegawa won her first collegiate medalist honors at last month's PING/ASU Intercollegiate and is first on the team with a 70.83-stroke average, while Ohma boasts a 71.59 stroke average and is on pace to set the program record for lowest average by a freshman.
"I've been working a lot on my short game, and it's just getting better and better," said Ohma, who has three top-5 finishes this year. "And my long game, I've always been pretty good and I still feel pretty good about that. So, I'm looking forward to it."
Hasegawa transferred to Baylor after earning Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors at East Tennessee State and tying for fifth at the SoCon Championship. She missed two tournaments earlier in the year with an injury, but had three-straight rounds in the 60s at the Collegiate Invitational and then had a 6-1 record at the match play tournament.
"Actually, I wanted to play in the tournaments," she said. "But Coach was like, 'No, you should rest.' And I feel like that was a smart decision because right now I don't have any pain in my body, which makes me really happy. And I can swing without thinking about my body."
Baylor has also had success at the Dallas Athletic Club, winning the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020 and tying for second the last time the Big 12 Championship was held on this course in 2018.
Travis Moore, the DAC Golf Course Superintendent, spent nine years in the same role at the Ridgewood Country Club course where Baylor practices.
"This golf course feels very much like Ridgewood Country Club, which is closed right now, but it still feels like home cooking to us," Goble said. "They have bent grass greens, Bermuda fairways and oak trees everywhere, so it very much has a Ridgewood kind of feel to it. And being only two hours up the road, I think geographically it is very similar. So yeah, I feel great about going to the Dallas Athletic Club."
Baylor will be paired with Texas and Iowa State for Friday's first round, with pairings and live scoring available at golfstat.com.
DALLAS, Texas – No. 13 Baylor women's golf begins its postseason run on Friday morning at Dallas Athletic Club in the opening round of the Big 12 Championship.
The Bears finished tied for second the last time the Big 12 Championship was played at DAC, but junior Rosie Belsham and her teammates feel confident the 2023 team can make another run at a Big 12 title.
"All of us are more than ready," Belsham said. "While only a few of us have championship experience, we've made it clear to everyone that this is a big deal. We have such a strong team; winning the whole thing is absolutely within our reach. I think we are the best team in the Big 12. The Big 12 Match Play was a good wake-up call, so we're ready."
In addition to a second-place finish at Dallas Athletic Club in 2018, the Bears won the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020. Head coach Jay Goble knows the program has good vibes at DAC, and while those past teams won't hit a shot this week, the current team will feel right at home two hours north.
"This golf course feels very much like Ridgewood Country Club," he said. "It feels like home cooking to us. The green superintendent, Travis Moore, was our green superintendent at Ridgewood for 10 years. They have bent grass greens, Bermuda fairways and oak trees everywhere, so it has a Ridgewood feel. Being only two hours up the road, it is geographically similar, so I feel great about going to Dallas Athletic Club."
Sera Hasegawa was dominant at the match play and will play at the No. 1 spot this week in Dallas. The sophomore from Japan leads the team in stroke average and rounds at par or better, while also having 94.4 % of her rounds counted towards the team's score this season.
Belsham will play at No. 2 this week. The junior picked up All-Tournament Team honors last year at the Big 12 Championship with a seventh-place finish at Houston Oaks.
Silje Ohma will play at the No. 3 spot this week. The freshman boasts a stroke average of 71.59, which is on pace to be the lowest by a freshman in program history.
Britta Snyder will start her third Big 12 Championship in the No. 4 spot. Snyder's best finish at the Big 12s was a tie for 15th in 2021.
Hannah Karg will take the final spot in the lineup at No. 5. The senior has previous experience around Dallas Athletic Club, finishing tied for 22nd at the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020.
Once available, pairings and live stats will be available at Golfstat.com. For more information on Baylor Women's Golf, follow @BaylorWGolf on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Baylor Bear Insider
Looking for just its second-ever Big 12 championship and first in eight years, the 13th-ranked Baylor women's golf team is seeded second for the Big 12 Championship that starts Friday morning at the Dallas Athletic Club.
Second on the team with a 71.23-stroke average with three top-5 finishes, junior Rosie Belsham said the Bears are "100% the best team in the Big 12."
"We have such a strong team that winning this year would just be unreal," said Belsham, who won medalist honors at the Collegiate Invitational two months ago in Guadalajara, Mexico.
With six top-5 finishes, including a team win at the Collegiate Invitational, coach Jay Goble believes the Bears have "played well enough throughout the year that they deserve to be confident and should be confident."
"We haven't won it in eight years, but we've been knocking on the door for a long time now," Goble said. "I do feel that if this team plays their game, we can really move the needle on Sunday."
As strong as Baylor's team is, the Big 12 might be "as deep as they've ever been in women's golf," Goble said.
Texas is ranked ninth and won the Big 12 Match Play two weeks ago in Arizona. Iowa State is ranked 16th and set the NCAA record for a 54-hole tournament with a 60-under-par 804 two months ago at the MountainView Collegiate, while Oklahoma State (25th), Texas Tech (32nd) and TCU (49th) are all in the top 50. Kansas is 52nd, but made it to the Match Play final.
"We're not going to take any of that for granted," Goble said, "but we are going to focus on and concentrate on our game, because we can't focus on anything that anyone else does. But if we do that, we're going to be in a good place on Sunday."
Like Belsham, senior Hannah Karg and junior Britta Snyder are playing in their third Big 12 tournaments. They both recorded top-20 individual finishes at last year's tournament to help the Bears to their fourth-consecutive top-3 finish, tying Oklahoma State for second place and just three shots behind Texas.
"Even though we're a young team, we do have some experience traveling with us," said Goble, who is taking sophomore BaiMai Seema as an alternate. "Those players have played in a national championship, they've played in a couple of Big 12 Championships. They know that taking care of their controllables and playing golf the way they know how is the only thing they can do. I feel confident that they're going to keep everybody loose and ready to go."
Making their first trip to the Big 12 Championship are sophomore transfer Sera Hasegawa and freshman Silje Ohma. Hasegawa won her first collegiate medalist honors at last month's PING/ASU Intercollegiate and is first on the team with a 70.83-stroke average, while Ohma boasts a 71.59 stroke average and is on pace to set the program record for lowest average by a freshman.
"I've been working a lot on my short game, and it's just getting better and better," said Ohma, who has three top-5 finishes this year. "And my long game, I've always been pretty good and I still feel pretty good about that. So, I'm looking forward to it."
Hasegawa transferred to Baylor after earning Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors at East Tennessee State and tying for fifth at the SoCon Championship. She missed two tournaments earlier in the year with an injury, but had three-straight rounds in the 60s at the Collegiate Invitational and then had a 6-1 record at the match play tournament.
"Actually, I wanted to play in the tournaments," she said. "But Coach was like, 'No, you should rest.' And I feel like that was a smart decision because right now I don't have any pain in my body, which makes me really happy. And I can swing without thinking about my body."
Baylor has also had success at the Dallas Athletic Club, winning the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020 and tying for second the last time the Big 12 Championship was held on this course in 2018.
Travis Moore, the DAC Golf Course Superintendent, spent nine years in the same role at the Ridgewood Country Club course where Baylor practices.
"This golf course feels very much like Ridgewood Country Club, which is closed right now, but it still feels like home cooking to us," Goble said. "They have bent grass greens, Bermuda fairways and oak trees everywhere, so it very much has a Ridgewood kind of feel to it. And being only two hours up the road, I think geographically it is very similar. So yeah, I feel great about going to the Dallas Athletic Club."
Baylor will be paired with Texas and Iowa State for Friday's first round, with pairings and live scoring available at golfstat.com.
DALLAS, Texas – No. 13 Baylor women's golf begins its postseason run on Friday morning at Dallas Athletic Club in the opening round of the Big 12 Championship.
The Bears finished tied for second the last time the Big 12 Championship was played at DAC, but junior Rosie Belsham and her teammates feel confident the 2023 team can make another run at a Big 12 title.
"All of us are more than ready," Belsham said. "While only a few of us have championship experience, we've made it clear to everyone that this is a big deal. We have such a strong team; winning the whole thing is absolutely within our reach. I think we are the best team in the Big 12. The Big 12 Match Play was a good wake-up call, so we're ready."
In addition to a second-place finish at Dallas Athletic Club in 2018, the Bears won the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020. Head coach Jay Goble knows the program has good vibes at DAC, and while those past teams won't hit a shot this week, the current team will feel right at home two hours north.
"This golf course feels very much like Ridgewood Country Club," he said. "It feels like home cooking to us. The green superintendent, Travis Moore, was our green superintendent at Ridgewood for 10 years. They have bent grass greens, Bermuda fairways and oak trees everywhere, so it has a Ridgewood feel. Being only two hours up the road, it is geographically similar, so I feel great about going to Dallas Athletic Club."
Sera Hasegawa was dominant at the match play and will play at the No. 1 spot this week in Dallas. The sophomore from Japan leads the team in stroke average and rounds at par or better, while also having 94.4 % of her rounds counted towards the team's score this season.
Belsham will play at No. 2 this week. The junior picked up All-Tournament Team honors last year at the Big 12 Championship with a seventh-place finish at Houston Oaks.
Silje Ohma will play at the No. 3 spot this week. The freshman boasts a stroke average of 71.59, which is on pace to be the lowest by a freshman in program history.
Britta Snyder will start her third Big 12 Championship in the No. 4 spot. Snyder's best finish at the Big 12s was a tie for 15th in 2021.
Hannah Karg will take the final spot in the lineup at No. 5. The senior has previous experience around Dallas Athletic Club, finishing tied for 22nd at the SMU/DAC Invitational in 2020.
Once available, pairings and live stats will be available at Golfstat.com. For more information on Baylor Women's Golf, follow @BaylorWGolf on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
—BaylorBears.com—
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