Sept. 8, 2005
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame women’s golf team will not have to travel far to open the fall portion of their 2005-06 slate as they will host the sixth annual Notre Dame Invitational this Saturday, Sept. 10 and Sunday, Sept. 11. Head coach Debby King and the Fighting Irish will welcome in 16 other schools to the event, which will take place at the par 72, 6,003-yard Warren Golf Course near the Notre Dame campus. Competition gets underway both days with an 8:00 a.m. shotgun start. Two rounds will be played on Saturday and the third and final round will take place on Sunday.
TOURNAMENT: This will be the sixth year that Notre Dame has hosted the event at the Warren Golf Course. The Fighting Irish have claimed tournament victories in 2000, 2002 and 2003. Iowa took home the hardware in 2001 and the Cyclones of Iowa State were victorious last year. The 2004 tournament featured the rewriting of every major Notre Dame Invitational record, including Notre Dame’s Karen Lotta firing a four-under par 68 in the third and final round. Iowa State’s Louise Kenney won the individual title with a tournament record even-par 216. The Cyclones posted a 38-over par 54-hole total of 902, another record.
FORMAT: Each team’s lineup will be comprised of five golfers, with the lowest four scores for each round counting towards the overall team score. The second round will be played immediately after round one on Saturday. Team pairings for the first two rounds will stay the same and pairings for the third round will be based on results from rounds one and two.
FIELD: The tournament will consist of 17 teams, headlined by the Fighting Irish, who are coming off back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. There will be a local flavor to the tournament as four other instate schools will tee it up. Butler, Indiana, IUPUI and Saint Mary’s College will all compete at the Warren Golf Course. Several teams from neighboring states will also make the trek to South Bend. Bradley, Eastern Michigan, Illinois, Toledo, Western Illinois, Western Michigan and Xavier are also on board for this weekend’s event. Fellow BIG EAST-foe Georgetown and former conference member Boston College will also join Notre Dame on the course. Rounding out the field is Bucknell, Winthrop and Yale.
NOTRE DAME LINEUP: Junior Noriko Nakazaki (Hanover Park, Ill./Hoffman Estates) will play the No. 1 spot for the Irish. Nakazaki is the current career stroke-average leader in the history of the Notre Dame program with a 76.44 mark in 71 rounds of play. Senior captain Katie Brophy (Spokane, Wash./Gonzaga Prep) occupies the second spot in the Irish lineup, while sophomore Jane Lee (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif./Peninsula) and senior co-captain Suzie Hayes (Dublin, Ireland/Loreto College) round out the top-four spots. The fifth and final position will be determined through a playoff on Friday between senior Lauren Gebauer (Columbus, Ohio/Upper Arlington), junior Stacy Brown (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands) and freshman Courtney Sullivan (Gresham, Ore./Sam Barlow).
Nakazaki had an average of 76.54 last season and captured a win at the Indiana Invitational. She led the team with 32 of her 35 rounds counting towards the team score.
Brophy owns a career-stroke average of 77.49, which ranks her second all time behind Nakazaki in Notre Dame history. Brophy led the team in seven tournaments, while posting a team-best average of 76.46, last season and also claimed a tournament victory at the Central Regional Preview in Lubbock, Texas. She has a school-record three career wins on her resume.
Lee competed in all but one of the team’s events as a freshman in 2004-05. She posted a 79.12 stroke-average on the season. Hayes registered a stroke-average of 79.00 last year and owns a career average of 80.07.
The Irish will also send out five other golfers to compete as individuals. Senior Sarah Bassett (Spokane, Wash./Lewis and Clark), sophomore Alejandra Diaz-Calderon (Guadalajara, Mexico/Ameican) and freshman Lisa Maunu (St. Thomas, Ontario/Parkside Collegiate Institute) will join the two golfers who do not qualify for the fifth spot in the Notre Dame lineup.
IRISH THOUGHTS: Notre Dame head coach Debby King and junior Noriko Nakazaki share their thoughts on the season-opening Notre Dame Invitational and the 2005-06 campaign …
Debby King – head coach …
“I think our toughest competition this weekend will be Illinois. It’s nice to have Georgetown coming in from the BIG EAST and Boston College, who used to be in the conference. I wish St. John’s would be coming here so we could get some revenge from last year’s BIG EAST Tournament.”
“Katie (Brophy) and Noriko (Nakazaki) are playing quite competitively. Our freshmen are also competing for spots in the lineup so that’s cool.”
“Our mindset this year is to take the next step and make it to finals (of the NCAAs). Katie (Brophy) is one of our leaders in scoring average and Noriko (Nakazaki) is steady with her average. If they can both drop a couple shots each off of their average that would be huge. In fact, if the whole team can improve two shots that would make a big difference.”
Noriko Nakazaki – junior …
“We are excited to get the season started and obviously our goal is to win. We are the top team in this tournament if you look at the rankings but you never know what is going to happen in golf. We also view this weekend as a competition against ourselves to see how we can get better.”
“My goals for this season are to try and improve as a team and make it to the NCAA finals. Personally, I’d like to lower my scoring average and just work hard and try to improve as much as I can.”
“Katie (Brophy) and Suzie (Hayes) are great leaders for our team. Now that I’m an upperclassman, I do need to work on my mindset of being a leader a little bit more. I want to help the underclassman and be more of a leader to them.”
NEXT UP: Notre Dame will have a week off before heading to the Lady Northern Invitational in Bloomington, Ind. The Lady Northern will be played at the Indiana University Golf Course Saturday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept. 25.
For more information on the 2005-06 Notre Dame women’s golf season, please log on to und.com or call the official Notre Dame Athletics Hotline at (574) 631-3000.
–ND–