University of Memphis Athletics
Women's Golf Prepping for Final Regular Season Tournament
Apr 01, 2015 | Women's Golf
2015 Ole Miss Program 
The Memphis women's golf team will use one last competition this weekend in preparation for the upcoming American Athletic Conference championships. The Lady Tigers will compete in the Ole Miss Rebel Intercollegiate, Friday through Sunday at the Ole Miss Golf Course.
While using the tournament to prep for the conference championship tournament, Memphis will also have a shot at some top-ranked competition, looking to improve its team ranking from No. 65 closer to the team's goal of breaking in to the top 50 this season. The tournament boasts three top 25 ranked teams (No. 14 Tennessee, No. 15 Texas A&M and No. 24 Furman) in addition top eight top 100 programs.
Teams will tee off Friday from tees one and 10, with Memphis' tee times staggering from 9:36 to 10:12 off the first tee for the team competitors and an 11:06 tee time off one for Natalie Turk, who will compete in the tournament as an individual.
Emily Goldenstein, Leighann Cabush, Michaela Fletcher, Julia Gerlach and Ashley Kees will make up Memphis' team entry in to the tournament.
Goldenstein is coming in to the tournament after a career-best second place finish at the Bearcat Spring Classic in Florida in Memphis' last outing. The freshman was named the American Athletic Conference women's golfer of the week last week for her finish and now has two career top fives and four career top 10s in eight collegiate events. She opened the Bearcat Classic with a career-best round of 70, hitting the club house after the first day of play with the individual tournament lead. She then posted back-to-back 75s to capture her career best finish.
Like Goldenstein, Cabush has also qualified for every tournament so far on the Memphis schedule. The sophomore has posted top five finishes in two of the last three tournaments, and has finished in the top 10 in all three tournaments so far this spring. Cabush closed her Bearcat Classic in style in the Lady Tigers' last outing, tying a career best with a third round 70 to move to fourth in the final standings. That gave Cabush seven top 10 finishes in eight events this season.
Freshman Michaela Fletcher also saved her best round of the Bearcat Classic for the final round, posting a 71 that moved her to a tie for sixth overall. The South African freshman has finished in the top 10 five times in seven events this year and has finished second or tied for second three times this season.
Julia Gerlach will be playing in her third straight tournament. Similar to Goldenstein, Gerlach posted a season-best round at the last tournament, closing play with a 74 to finish tied for 17th overall. Gerlach has finished in the top 20 in the last two tournaments, and her three-round score of 230 tied her season-best mark from this fall's opening tournament on the Lady Tigers' home course in the Memphis Intercollegiate.
Ashley Kees will round out the team scorers for Memphis at this week's tournament. Kees finished tied for 21st in her last outing, just missing a third straight tournament inside the top 20 finishers. In her Memphis career, she has now posted three top five finishes, four top 10 finishes and 11 top 20 finishes. Already this year, she tied the school record for low round in a tournament, scoring a 66 in the third round of the Pat Bradley Invitational in Memphis' final tournament of the fall.
Natalie Turk will be competing in her fifth tournament of her senior campaign. Turk last competed in the Southern Miss Lady Eagle Invitational, a tournament that had its second round cancelled due to rain. Turk finished tied for 37th in that tournament. Her season-best outing came in Memphis' spring opener at South Alabama, where she scored a 236 to finish tied for 20th overall. That top 20 finish was the fourth of her career.
Live scoring for the event will be available on BirdieFire.com.
Players Mentioned
