Georgia women's golf set to open NCAAs at Auburn
The Bulldogs’ Lineup
1. Napat Lertsadwattana – 5-5; Grad. Transfer; Bangkok, Thailand; Tr. - New Mexico
• Grad transfer from New Mexico who was medalist at 2023 MWC Championships & a three-time All-MWC
• Finished 18th individually at the 2023 NCAA Championships
• Missed fall finale while competing in 2nd stage of LPGA Q School
2. Caterina Don – 5-6; 5th Year Senior; Pinerolo, Italy; Istituto Maria Immacolata in Scuola Paritaria DM
• Three-time All-SEC honoree
• UGA’s top individual at nine of 12 events during the 2023-24 season
• Current stroke average (71.35) would be third-best ever by a Bulldog
• Three-time runner up this season, with seven top-10s and 10 top-20s
3. Savannah De Bock – 5-5; Freshman; Ecaussinnes-d’enghien, Belgium; Institut de l’Enfant-Jésus – Lycée
• Joined the Bulldogs in January
• Posted a 3-0 record to help Europe win the 2023 Junior Solheim Cup
• Won the 2022 European Ladies’ Amateur in a 4-hole playoff
• Top-5s at the ‘22 & ‘23 World Junior Girls Championships
4. LoraLie Cowart – 5-4; Junior; Carrollton, Ga.; Carrollton High School
• Enjoying a breakout junior season
• Posted three par-or-better scores in 42 rounds as a freshman and sophomore before notching 15 in 34 loops this season.
• Entered 2023-24 with a career stroke average of 76.50...73.00 this year
5. Bernice Olivarez Ilas – 5-2; Graduate Transfer; Ayala Alabang, Philippines; Tr. - San Diego State
• Grad transfer from San Diego State who was All-MWC in 2022
• Played in only five tournaments in 2023-24 due to injuries
• Strong showing at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, where she shot 2-over and tied for 12th
SUB. Natachanok Tunwannarux – 5-7; Freshman; Bangkok, Thailand; IMG Academy
• Posted two counting rounds and went 2-0 in match play at SECs
• Opened her collegiate career with a 4-under effort to tie for 20th at the Cougar Classic
• Shot season-low 5-under 66 in the 2nd round of the Darius Rucker
Bulldogs Set To Open NCAA Play At Auburn Regional
The No. 23-ranked Georgia Bulldogs begin pursuit of a fourth straight top-20 finish at the national championships on Monday when they tee off in the NCAA Auburn Regional.
Georgia is the No. 4 seed among 12 teams competing at the Auburn University Club for five spots in the field for the NCAA Championships. The Bulldogs will be paired with fifth-seeded North Carolina and sixth-seeded Michigan on Monday, teeing off from No. 10 between 9:00-9:44 am ET.
“It’s why you work all year,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “It’s why you start in August, and we are still practicing and trying to improve. At the SECs, we showed what we can do when he have a test. We have another test in front of us. We seem to play well under that pressure so we’re excited.”
The Bulldogs will stick with the same lineup that advanced to the semifinals of match play at the SEC Championships three weeks ago. Georgia will open the Regional with the quintet of Napat “Jenny” Lertsadwattana, Caterina Don, Savannah De Bock, LoraLie Cowart and Bernice Olivarez Ilas. Natachanok “Drive” Tunwannarux, who played second and third rounds of stroke play and went 2-0 in match play at the SECs, is a potential sub.
There was no doubt the Bulldogs would receive a Regional bid; however, Don said seeing “Georgia” on the screen during the NCAA selection show was still a thrill.
“You expect to be in because you’ve worked hard all season, but you don’t know you’re going to be in when you step foot on campus in August,” Don said. “It takes a lot of work to get here, and I think it’s worth celebrating seeing your name up there. We knew we were going to go, but it’s still exciting to see your name up there and know where you’re going to go and who you’re going to be competing with.”
The next step toward another top-20 effort is advancing from Auburn, which Don is confident the Bulldogs are prepared to do.
“I think we play a really tough schedule so all year we compete against some really hard teams and prepare for these moments,” Don said. “Josh always tells us you could be in position and need a final push to make nationals so I think we prepare throughout the whole season for this.
“And playing in the SECs – it’s the toughest conference in golf right now – it’s also very good preparation to go out there and succeed at Regionals and NCAAs,” Don added.
A nation-leading and record-setting 13 SEC teams are in Regional fields, tying the league’s totals in 2013 and 2023 for the most ever by any conference. Ten SEC teams currently are ranked in the top-25 nationally.
The Pac 12 ranked second nationally with nine teams in Regional fields, followed by the ACC and Big 12 with eight each and the Big Ten with seven.
Recapping The Season
Georgia has enjoyed a solid and steady campaign during 2023-24, with strong team and individual performances.
The Bulldogs have notched top-5 team finishes in five of seven spring events, with a quartet of third-place efforts at the Collegiate Invitational at Guadalajara Country Club, the FSU Match Up, the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic and the SEC Championships.
Georgia has shot par-or-better as a team at four tournaments and has posted par-or-better team tallies in 12 of 33 rounds.
Individually, the Bulldogs have compiled 12 top-10 and 28 top-20 finishes. Fifth-year senior Caterina Don leads the way with seven top-10s and 10 top-20s. Don has led Georgia at nine of 12 tournaments and finished as runner up three times, including the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic.
Collectively, Bulldogs have notched par-or-better scores in 67 of 195 round this season, 34.4 percent of their total loops.
Bulldogs Own Strong History In National Championship Play
Georgia has long been one of the college golf’s premier women’s programs, headlined by four total national titles – one team and three individual.
The Bulldogs won the 2001 NCAA title at Mission In Resort and Club in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. Individually, Terri Moody earned medalist honors at the 1981 AIAW Championships at the UGA Golf Course, while Cindy Schreyer and Vicki Goetze captured NCAA titles in 1984 and 1992 NCAA, respectively.
Those performances are just the peak of Georgia’s history. As a team, the Bulldogs now sport 21 top-10 and 29 top-20 team finishes at 45 AIAW and NCAA Championships since 1979. Georgia golfers have produced 38 top-20 efforts at the national championships, most recently when both Jenny Bae and Candice Mahé tied for sixth in 2022.
Since the NCAA introduced the Regional format in 1993, Georgia has claimed 10 titles – six team and four individual.
The Bulldogs won Regional team crowns in 1993, 1998, 1999, 2016, 2021 and 2023. The Georgia golfers who captured medalist honors are Reilley Rankin (1998), Bailey Tardy (2016) and Jenny Bae (2021 and 2023).
Last season’s Regional sweep in Athens was Georgia’s third in the last eight years dating back to the 2016 season. The Bulldogs and Stanford are the only two programs with three Regional sweeps during that time frame.
The team and individual winner from each Regional Georgia has competed in – along with Bulldogs’ yearly performance – can be found on Page 3 of this notes package.
Don, De Bock Earn SEC Honors
Caterina Don and Savannah De Bock were selected All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman, respectively, in balloting of the league’s women’s golf coaches announced May 1.
Don was tabbed second-team All-SEC for the third time in her career. She also was honored in 2020 and 2021. Don is currently ranked No. 29 nationally and leads the Bulldogs stroke average (71.35), par-or-better rounds (20) and birdies (115). She has covered 34 rounds at a combined 7-under par this season.
De Bock is mid-year enrollee and ranked No. 83 nationally. Last fall, she finished fourth at the World Junior Girls Championships and compiled a 3-0 record to help Europe win the Junior Solheim Cup before joining the Bulldogs in January. In seven tournaments since arriving on campus, De Bock has notched four top-20 performances, with a best effort of fifth place at the San Diego State Classic.
Don Making The Most Of Fifth Season At UGA
Caterina Don is on track to put her 2023-24 campaign among the best seasons ever by a Georgia Bulldog.
Most notably, Don’s current average of 71.35 would be the third-best ever for UGA. She has recorded 20 par-or-better scores – in 34 rounds – this season, the fourth-most ever by a Bulldog in a single season as outlined below.
GA Single-Season Records
Season Stroke Average
RK. GOLFER, SEASON AVG.
1. Jenny Bae, 2022-23 70.75
2. Jillian Hollis, 2017-18 71.04
Caterina Don, 2023-24 • 73.35 entering Regionals
3. Marta Silva Zamora, 2010-11 71.52
4. Bailey Tardy, 2015-16 72.06
5. Jillian Hollis, 2016-17 72.12
6. Caterina Don, 2019-20 72.15
Par-Or-Better Rounds
RK. GOLFER, SEASON No.
1. Jenny Bae, 2022-23 25
2. Bailey Tardy, 2015-16 22
Marta Silva Zamora, 2010-11 22
4. Caterina Don, 2023-24 20
5. Jillian Hollis, 2017-18 18
Bulldog Grad Transfers Sport NCAA Experience
Two of the six Bulldogs traveling to the Auburn Regional are graduate transfers with significant experience in NCAA Regionals at their previous schools.
Napat “Jenny” Lertsadwattana represented the New Mexico in Regionals each of the past three years – Columbus in 2021, Albuquerque in 2022 and San Antonio in 2023. Her best individual effort was 11th in both 2022 adn 2023. Lertsadwattana finished 18th individually at last spring’s NCAA Championships, leading the Lobos to their first top-10 team finish since 1998.
Bernice Olivarez Ilas played Regionals in 2021 and 2022 while at San Diego State, as part of the Aztecs’ lineup at Stanford in 2021 and qualifying as an individual for the 2022 Albuquerque Regional.
Cowart Credits Mental Game To Improved Performances
Numbers wise, junior LoraLie Cowart has enjoyed a breakout season in 2023-24.
After compiling a 75.60 stroke average with four par-or-better efforts in 42 career rounds as a freshman and sophomore, Cowart sports at 73.00 average with 15 POBs in 34 loops this season.
“I seriously mean it when I say my mental game is much better,” Cowart said prior to the FSU Match Up. “Before, I would stand over the golf ball and I wasn’t able to mentally pull the trigger. Now, I stand over the golf ball, and I’m like ‘This is going to go where I want it to and if not who cares? I’ll just go play the next shot.’ I was almost halted by the thought of things not working out like I wanted them to.”
Where does Cowart think that has made the biggest difference?
“I would say my wedges are better,” she said. “A lot of that has to do with how much Josh and our program puts an emphasis on that and how much work we do with wedges. I’m talking about from about 50-115 yards. We do a lot of work with that because those are your scoring clubs. I think my freshman and sophomore year, and I’m just going to be blunt, I didn’t buy into it. I’ve bought into it. That that’s really what makes a golfer elite in terms of going from junior to college golf.”
The Bulldogs Stand Out In The Classroom Too
Georgia’s women’s golfers sported the best grade point average of all 21 UGA athletic teams during the fall semester.
The Bulldogs combined to post a 3.67 GPA in the fall, which actually lowered the team’s cumulative GPA to a 3.72.
Georgia awards the Faculty Athletics Representative’s Award annually to the women’s and men’s teams with the highest GPA for the academic year. The golfers have won the award 13 times, lastly in 2021, and owned a .06 edge over cross country after the fall semester.
De Bock Arrives With Stellar Competitive Resume
Savannah De Bock joined the Bulldogs as a mid-year enrollee in January and has been a steady contributor since.
De Bock chose to remain in Europe during the fall to compete in three prestigious events – the PING Junior Solheim Cup, the World Junior Girls Championship and the World Amateur Team Championship.
De Bock posted a 3-0 record to help Europe defeat the U.S., 15-9, at the Junior Solheim Cup at La Zagaleta Golf Club in Benahavis, Spain. De Bock also was a member of Europe’s winning team in the 2021 PING Junior Solheim Cup.
De Bock finished fourth at the World Junior Girls Championship, her second straight top-5 effort after tying for fifth in 2022.
Those results headline an impressive ledger of results at the junior level which includes eight victories and 46 top-10 finishes in 98 WAGR level tournaments between 2018-23.
Most notably, De Bock won the 2022 European Ladies Amateur Championship at Golf de Saint-Germain outside Paris. She defeated Charlotte Heath on the fourth hole of a playoff after both golfers finished 72 holes at 19-under.