Women's Golf posts Sunday's third-round score on Thursday afternoon

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EUGENE, Oregon (May 19, 2016) — BYU opened the 2016 NCAA Women’s Golf Championships today with a 10-over-par 298 at the Eugene Country Club. To accommodate BYU’s longstanding policy of not competing on Sunday, the NCAA made provisions for the Cougars to play Sunday’s third round on Thursday afternoon.

Following the morning practice round with the other 23-teams in the field, the 26th-ranked Cougars returned to the golf course late afternoon to post a third-round score. Each of the five Cougars played the golf course with a marker for scoring purposes, but unaccompanied by another competitor. 

BYU was led by Kendra Dalton who fired a 2-under-par 70. The sophomore started off strong, with birdies on the third, fifth and eighth holes to make the turn at 3-under-par. Her consistent play continued on the back nine as she posted eight pars to go with just one bogey.

"Playing by myself was a unique experience," Dalton said. "It's definitely something I've never done in a tournament before. I like to play fast so I think it helped me to get in a groove and play one shot to the next. The course is in fantastic shape. It was a lot of fun to play."

Senior captain Lea Garner birdied three of the final five holes on the back nine for a 1-over-par 73. Junior Alex White shot 76, freshman Rose Huang posted a 79 and junior Brooklyn Hocker carded an 81 to round out the scoring for BYU.

“It was super exciting to compete in the NCAA Championships,” BYU head coach Carrie Roberts said. "I thought we fought hard today. Kendra's two-under par 70 was very impressive as was Lea's 73. We are looking forward to tomorrow. I expect we'll be a little bit sharper."

BYU will return to action with the rest of the teams in field on Friday morning for the first round of the championship. The NCAA Championship format consists of 54 holes of stroke play, from May 19-22. The top 15 teams will play one additional round of stroke play on May 23 to determine the 72-hole stroke play individual champion and also the top eight teams that will advance to match play on May 24-25.