HANAHAN, S.C. – The Penn State women's golf team will begin its 2018 fall schedule with a trip to South Carolina to participate in the 15th edition of the Cougar Classic hosted by the College of Charleston at historic Yeamans Hall Club.
The three-day tournament begins on Sunday, September 9 and concludes on Tuesday, September 11 at the 6,261 yard, Par-72 course. The opening two rounds of the tournament will feature split tees with nine-minute intervals between tee times starting at 8:30 a.m. while Tuesday's final round will be a 9 a.m. shotgun start.
THE TEAM
Head Coach Denise St. Pierre will be taking five student-athletes with her to the opening tournament of the fall including four returners and one freshman making her collegiate debut.
Senior classmates Jackie Rogowicz (Yardley, Pa.), Cara Basso (Downingtown, Pa.) and Lauren Waller (Canonsburg, Pa.) will join junior Ashni Dhruva (Katy, Tx.) and freshman Sarah Willis (Eaton, Ohio) as the starting five when the Nittany Lions reach the Palmetto State this weekend.
Each member of this week's starting five finished in the top-5 during a six-round preseason qualifying event the team participated in each of the last two weekends at the Penn State Blue and White Courses. Rogowicz won the qualifying with a cumulative 5-under score over the six rounds of play.
"One of the things we noticed [after watching our qualifying rounds] is that everyone came prepared each day. We warmed up really well and were always ready to go, I feel the players took it very seriously like it was a real tournament day," commented St. Pierre.
Basso, Rogowicz and Waller each participated in all nine tournaments last season with Basso leading the team with eight top-10's and a 73.59 stroke average while Rogowicz and Waller finished second and third on the team with a 74.31 and 74.46 stroke average, respectively.
Dhruva golfed in just one tournament last season finishing tied for 20th at the Nittany Lion Invitational in September.
ABOUT YEAMANS HALL
Yeamans Hall was ranked No. 87 on Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses of 2017-18.
The course was designed by Seth Raynor and Charles Banks in 1926 and restored and redesigned by Tom Doak in 1998 after Raynor's original designs were discovered in the clubhouse attic. Restoration touches are continuously being added each year.
2018 COUGAR CLASSIC FIELD
Returning after a year off for golf course renovations there will be 19 teams participating in this year's event with seven teams ranked inside the top-25 of the WGCA Preseason Coaches' poll including third-ranked Arkansas.
North Carolina also returns as the 2016 defending champion of the event and along with North Carolina State are receiving votes in the Preseason Poll.
The rest of the field is made up of Baylor (20), Boston College, Charleston Southern, College of Charleston (Host), Florida (12), Florida State (15), Furman (14), Georgetown, Indiana, LSU, Maryland, Tennessee, UCF, Vanderbilt (25) and Wake Forest (17).
Live scoring for the 2018 Cougar Classic will be available here.
NEXT UP
The Nittany Lions take the next weekend off before returning home for the Nittany Lion Invitational on September 22-23 at the Penn State Blue Course.
