Spring Tourney Schedule

February 7                     Georgia Invitational (Individuals)                Athens, GA

February 22-23              Westbrook Spring Invitational                     Peoria, AZ

March 6-8                      Darius Rucker Intercollegiate                      Hilton Head, SC

March 16-17                  Bobby Nichols (Individuals)                       Sevierville, TN

March 23-25                  SDSU Farms Invitational                            Rancho Santa Fe, CA

April 3-6                        Rebel Intercollegiate                                   Oxford, MS

April 17-19                    SEC Championship                                     Birmingham, AL

May 7-9                         NCAA Regionals                                         TBD

May 22-27                     NCAA Championship                                 Bradenton, FL

Spring 2015 Underway

After a long break from blogging I'm back to keep you up to date about our program!  After a nice fall and a good off season we are busy at work again preparing for our first two events of the spring. We have been lucky enough to have some good weather and already have 5 rounds of qualifying under our belts and the ladies have played some good golf!

We plan to bring a few individuals to a one day event hosted by Georgia on February 7th, then our first team event is the Westbrook Invitational in Phoenix February 22-23.  We ended up the fall ranked 13 on Golfweek and 18 by Golfstat.  We are excited to get back to competition and see what the spring season holds!

We're Back!!

After a long absence due to craziness in Lady Vol golf land, I am back and will post regularly (promise)!  Over the summer we had an assistant coaching change, a player change and still needed 3 players for the class of 2013.  After some hard work I checked off those three items,  only to find ourselves needing to replace a player this winter!  After more hard work, great luck and a minor miracle, we landed not one but two new players for this spring! 

We have had a good winter break and are now starting qualifying for our first spring tournament. We leave two weeks from today!  So far the scores are GOOD - so proud of the players for being ready to go!

Here is our spring schedule. It's a super competitive one!  All 4 regular season events are ranked in the 10 best fields of the spring.

February 15-17   Match Up Invitational
                             Tallahassee, FL

March 8-10         Darius Rucker Intercollegiate
                             Hilton Head, SC

March 22-24      LSU Invitational
                            Baton Rouge, LA

March 29-31     Bryan National Collegiate
                           Greensboro, NC


I hope you'll check back regularly to follow our program this spring!

Erica Popson to represent Team USA in Curtis Cup!

This weekend, June 8-10, Erica Popson will represent the USA as part of the Curtis Cup team.  She is in Scotland

now with team preparing for the matches.  Erica was selected to the team in January and is very excited about the opportunity!  Follow the Curtis Cup matches at http://www.curtiscup.org/. 

 Click here to see an interview with Erica posted on USGA.org

Lady Vols Finish 19th at NCAA, End the Season Ranked 15th

After a cookout that included lots of s'mores, we headed a short way west on I-40 to Nashville to compete at the NCAA Championship looking for big things!  While we didn't quite come away with the finish we wanted, we did post a final round 286 (-2) to end the season. It was a good way to finish the year and keep us believing in our team for next season!  Vanderbilt did a great job hosting and even treated us to a private concert by Vince Gill to start the week!  



Team Awards Banquet

We held our annual team awards banquet at Gettysvue Country Club to celebrate the season!  Winners of the awards were:

Player of the Year - Erica Popson
Carrie Cole Effort Award - AJ Newell
Weight Room Award - Sara Monberg
Team Before Self - Sara Monberg

Senior (Gift and Ring) - Nathalie Mansson
Junior (Watches) - Erica Popson, Sara Monberg
Sophomore (Jackets) - Chessey Thomas, Kaitlyn Rohrback
Freshman (Blanket) - AJ Newell

4th at Regionals, NCAA Bound for the 8th time in 9 years!

We were selected as the 5th seed in the Central Regional hosted by Ohio State.  We have played the Scarlet Course before and it's TOUGH!  Since we have a team of long hitters and good ball strikers, I thought it would be perfect for us.  We didn't breeze through by any means, but had a great final round of 290 to secure 4th place and our 4th consecutive trip to the NCAA Championship - the 8th in the past 9 seasons.  On to Nationals at Vanderbilt!

Lady Vols WIN!!

 After two days at home, we boarded another flight, this time for Baton Rouge to compete in the LSU Invitational.  We arrived without incident and woke up bright and early for a 7am practice round.  We played the course last year, so we had a good productive practice round and got a good feel for the course.  We played 3 solid rounds of golf and came away with the VICTORY!  We were tied with LSU with just a couple holes to play, and our girls finished strong and it made all the difference, we ended up beating them by 2.  Erica Popson won again too!  She shot 75-70-69 to earn co-medalist honors with Catherine O'Donnel of UNC.  We had four players finish in the top 10:  Erica - 1st, Nathalie - 7th, AJ and Sara - 10th.  In addition, Kaitlyn posted another top 20 finishing 16th.

On Friday night, our host family, the Bartons, had us over for some Mexican food, crawfish and gator - yummm!

Spring Season Underway!

Finally, after about 6 weeks of practice, we played in our first tournament! We traveled to Hilton Head to compete in the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate hosted by South Carolina.  After some flight adventures along the way we all arrived safely and were excited to get started!  We played at Long Cove Club which was a very nice golf course!  Unfortunately it was a little intimidating off the tee and we let that get the best of us and finished 9th.  But a bright spot was Kaitlyn Rohrback who finished 16th individually.

The tournament was awesome even though we didn't play the way we wanted to! We all stayed together in an amazing house in Sea Pines right on the ocean. We got some great gifts, the food was awesome and we had a bunch of great fans from Knoxville who cheered us on! Oh, I almost forgot the best part, a PRIVATE concert for the teams by Darius Rucker!

Erica Popson Selected to Curtis Cup Team!

Erica Popson was contacted last week by the USGA with the news that she will be representing the United States in the Curtis Cup this summer in Scotland.  We have never had a player selected to the Curtis Cup, so this is big news for Lady Vol Golf!  Click here to view a video of our interview about her selection.  She is off to Palm Springs today to meet her teammates and start planning their strategy for June.

We have had numerous players represent their countries in international competition.  Since I have been at UT the following players have played for their countries:

Jessica Lindberg, Golda Johansson and Nathalie Mansson for Sweden
Jessica Shepley for Canada
Tina Schneeberger for Austria
Violeta Retamoza and Diana Cantu for Mexico
Sara Monberg for Denmark

Chats With Chessey, episode 2

The second installment of Chats with Chessey is now up!  She asks her coaches and teammates questions about who is "most likely" to do certain things.  For an inside look at the Lady Vols click here!!

Chats with Chessey

Sophomore Chessey Thomas has come up with a new feature for our team called "Chats with Chessey".  Every so often she will be interviewing someone in the Tennessee family and we will post those interviews everywhere!  Chessey is from Spokane, Washington and is majoring in communications.  Based on her first interview with new assistant coach Marci Turner, I think she will be great!  Click below to view the first episode!

Chats with Chessey

New Assistant Coach!

I am so excited to announce that I have hired Marci Turner as our assistant coach.  Marci was a great student and player for the University of Tennessee and will be a great addition to our program!  Read on to find out more about her...


KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Former Tennessee Lady Vol standout Marci Turner has been named as the new Tennessee assistant women's golf coach, as announced by head coach Judi Pavón.

"I am very excited about adding Marci to our coaching staff," Pavón said. "She was one of the best players ever during her career at UT. Her experience will definitely help us, both on the golf course and in recruiting."

Turner, who played for the Big Orange from 2004-2008, returns to Rocky Top after earning her Master's of Science degree in Recreation and Sport Administration from Western Kentucky University. She has served as the director of the Monroe County Family Wellness Center in Tompkinsville, Ky., since June.

After wrapping up one of the finest careers in Lady Vol golf history, Turner played on the Duramed FUTURES Tour from November 2007 until December 2009. She earned fully exempt status for both the 2008 and 2009 season, finishing 24th and eighth respectively at the FUTURES Tour Qualifying Tournament.

While at Tennessee, Turner garnered All-America honors five times: three times from Golfweek and twice from the National Golf Coaches Association. She was also recognized with several All-Southeastern Conference laurels, including first-team honors in 2006 and 2007.

Turner served as team captain for the Lady Vols from 2006 to 2008. She still holds the UT record for low round (64), most career rounds (133) and career rounds of par or better (36).

She graduated from Tennessee in 2008 with a degree in Plant Sciences, concentrating in turfgrass management.

Mack and Jonnie Day Practice Facility!!

Our facility is AWESOME and I just got some great photos of it, so here they are!

Big Break Ireland!

Tomorrow, September 20, the Big Break Ireland airs!  I am so excited to watch former Lady Vol Nicole Smith on the show!  Nicole was a great player for the Lady Vols during her 4 year career and the outspoken Californian will be fun to watch on the show!

Click here to read a great article about Nicole and her career at Tennessee.

Good Luck Nicole, we'll be watching!

Cougar Classic!

We started our season at the Cougar Classic this week in Charleston, SC.  We played well, but finished 7th, which wasn't quite what we wanted.  Erica finished 2nd at -9,  Chessey shot 70 in the final round and freshman AJ Newell shot 71 on the final day!  It was a good way to start off the season as everyone played solid.  We'll work on a few things and get ready for the Fall Preview next week!

Time to Get Started!!!

Qualifying is in the books and the lineup is set for our first tournament, the Cougar Classic.  After almost 3 weeks of school, 5 rounds of qualifying, photo day and the first football game we are ready to compete!

Here are the players:

Erica

Chessey

AJ

Kaitlyn

Sara

These girls played great in qualifying and we are looking forward to a great first good tournament!

Unfortunately Nathalie has had her hand in a cast for 3 weeks and a brace for one, with one more to go.  Hopefully she will be back on the course soon too!

2011-2012 Schedule

Finally our 2011-2012 has been finalized and approved! It's a very strong schedule and will be a great test for our team. We have an awesome team next season, so we should be able to handle it!

Cougar Classic presented by Piggly Wiggly
Charleston, SC
Sept. 11-13

Fall Preview
Nashville, TN
Sept. 23-25

UNC Tarheel Invitational
Durham, NC
Oct. 7-9

Mercedes Benz SEC-Pac 12 Challenge
Knoxville, TN
Oct. 21-23

Darius Rucker Intercollegiate
Hilton Head, SC
March 2-4

LSU Classic
Baton Rouge, LA
March 9-11

Maui Spring Invitational
Maui, Hawaii
March 26-27

Bryan National Collegiate
Greensboro, NC
April 6-8

SEC Championship
Fayetteville, AR
April 20-22

NCAA Regional
TBD (Penn State, Ohio State or Colorado)
May 10-12

NCAA Championship
Nashville, TN
May 22-25

End of the Year Awards Banquet

We celebrated the end of a good season at Cherokee Country Club just before heading to Nationals. We presented the following awards:

Player of the Year - Erica Popson
"Carrie Cole" Effort Award - Kaitlyn Rohrback
Weight Room Award - Erica Popson
Leadership Award - Sara Monberg
Freshman Letter Awards - Katilyn Rohrback, Chessey Thomas
Sophomore Letter Awards - Leigh Henderson, Erica Popson, Sara Monberg
Junior Letter Award - Nathalie Mansson
Senior Gifts and Letter Awards - Lauren Spurlock, Rebecca Watson

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP!

We just finished up the season at the NCAA Championship hosted by Texas A&M in College Station. It was a very good event and the Lady Vols had some highs and lows to end the season! We finished the tournament in 13th place, which was disappointing because after two rounds we were in 8th. On a high note Erica Popson was named to the West Region team and also was named a First Team All-American. Although not official yet, both Kaitlyn Rohrback and Sara Monberg will be named Academic All-Americans for their performance on the course and in the classroom. And Chessey Thomas saved her best for last, she shot a final round 68 for her lowest round of the season by 4 shots! We also celebrated Nathalie's 22nd birthday at Texas Roadhouse and they did a good job embarrassing her for us!

All of the players have headed home, so things are quiet on the Tennessee campus! Looking forward to a relaxing summer before we get back to work!