Weather Delays Leave Bulldogs In Dark For Second Round
10/9/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
SAMMAMISH, Wash. - Gonzaga University was one of three teams remaining on the course when darkness fell Monday at the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational women's golf tournament hosted by the University of Washington at famed Sahalee Country Club.
In addition to the Bulldogs, the University of California and the University of Colorado still had three players each on the course needing to finish the ninth hole (their 18th hole of the second round).
The nine golfers will tee off at 7:45 a.m. The second round is expected to be finished by 8:30 a.m. with the final round set to tee off at 9 a.m. Pairings will remain the same Wednesday as they were for Monday's two rounds.
The Bulldogs shot an opening-round 303 on the 6,039-yard, par 72 layout. When play was halted the Bulldogs were in eighth place at 29-over-par. California and UC Davis are tied for sixth at 24-over par.
Gonzaga's Tai Jade 'TJ' Kliebphipat and Han Wu have both finished 36 holes and both are at 19-over par. Kliebphipat had an 85 in the first round and Wu an 81. Raychelle Santos, Ciera Min and Alice Kim all have one more hole remaining in round two. Santos is currently at 3-over par for the day after an opening-round 76, Min is 4-over par after an opening round 74 and Kim is 7-over par after shooting even-par 72 for the first round.
As has been the case in three of the four tournaments the Bulldogs played this spring, weather again was a factor.
"We had a lot of everything," Gonzaga head coach Brad Rickel said. "It rained a lot, it was windy. We had a delay for serious hail which resulted in casual water on the course plus left hail on the greens."
The hail was so bad golfers on the green were permitted to remove the hail and putt without penalty so play could continue. Play for the day started 20 minutes late because of the weather.
"We kind of also got a bad part of the tee time draw which you do sometimes. We ended up in threesomes while most of the field was in twosomes," Rickel said. "We were at the end of the pack with California and Colorado. It was getting dark, we started to hurry a little bit so we could finish, we gave away a bunch of shots on the last three or four holes, we played until pitch black and three teams still didn't finish."
Despite the frustrations brought about by weather and darkness, Rickel said there were some positives.
"We had some great rounds on a hard course; three really good scores in the morning. Alice shot even par for the morning round and Ciera had a 74 and Raychelle a 76. We got a little more sideways in the afternoon but we still have a couple of people coming in with good scores," Rickel noted.
Santos is 1-under par and Min 2-over par heading into the final of round two Wednesday morning.
Rickel said "we're not in a horrible position if we can have one good round. We can still have a finish we would be proud of."
Stanford University, ranked 11th in the country, is atop the leaderboard at 569 for a 21-shot lead over the host Huskies, ranked 12th nationally, and the University of Oregon which is also receiving votes in the poll. Stanford's Mariko Tumangan is the clubhouse leader at 137 after rounds of 71-66 for a 1-stroke leader over teammate Mariah Stackhouse entering Wednesday's final round.
"They are great teams and deep," Rickel said of the top of the leaderboard. "Washington is good, but they are also good in this climate because they practice in it a lot. Stanford is just flat out good." Rickel said.
