Baylor Women’s Golf Rallies to Win Bruzzy Challenge

LANTANA, Texas – Baylor women’s golf rallied from five strokes back entering the final round to win the Bruzzy Challenge with a 54-hole score of 10-under-par 854. The Bears’ shot 3-over 291 in Tuesday’s final round at Lantana Golf Club, the best score in the 15-team field, to jump ahead of Ole Miss and Texas Tech to claim their first tournament title in nearly two years.

Gurleen Kaur earned her career-first individual title by shooting 1-under 71 in the final round to finish at 9-under 207, matching Texas’ Hailee Cooper atop the leaderboard in the 84-player field. It was Kaur’s third consecutive top-10 finish and her sixth top-10 out of 15 career collegiate events. Kaur was 7-under and two shots back of the lead with four holes remaining, but she made birdies on Nos. 15 and 16 before finishing with two consecutive pars.

Maria Vesga carded Baylor’s best final round at 2-under 70, climbing 21 spots into a tie for 14th place at 1-under 215. Erica Chiang shot 2-over 74 to finish tied for 17th place at even-par 216, and Emma Bradley posted the Bears’ final counting score at 4-over 76 to finish tied for 28th place at 3-over 219.

Jordan Shackelford, who was competing as an individual, shot 6-over 78 in the final round and finished tied for 41st place at 6-over 222. Amelia McKee had a final round of 5-over 77 to tie for 47th place at 7-over 223.

No. 35 Baylor (-10) recorded head-to-head wins over No. 41 Ole Miss (-8), No. 43 Texas Tech (-3), BYU (-2), No. 20 Miami (+5), No. 28 Houston (+6), Maryland (+9), No. 2 Texas (+9), No. 19 TCU (+14), SMU (+19), Texas A&M (+22), Kansas State (+22), Missouri (+32), Iowa (+35) and North Texas (+36). All 15 teams in the field entered the tournament top-90 ranked by Golfstat.

HIGHLIGHTS

Baylor earned the 11th team title of the eight-year Jay Goble era, while Kaur’s title was the 10th individual title earned by a BU player during Goble’s tenure.

Kaur moved into the top spot on Baylor’s career stroke average list with a 72.84 average across 45 rounds, just ahead of Hayley Davis’ 73.00 mark.

Baylor earned its first team title since Oct. 25, 2016, at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown.

Kaur’s title was the first by a BU player since Dylan Kim won the 2017 Big 12 Championship on April 23, 2017.

Kaur also set personal records for best 18-, 36- and 54-hole scores at 67, 136 and 207, respectively.

Kaur’s 207 tied the fourth-best 54-hole total in program history, and her 9-under tied the second-best score to par in BU history.

BU ranked second in the 15-team field in par-4 scoring at 4-over 4.03, tied for third in par-5 scoring at 9-under 4.85 and third in par-3 scoring at 5-over 3.08.

Baylor’s 54 birdies tied for second-most in the field and were one back of the lead, and the Bears joined Houston at the only teams with two eagles.

Kaur led the 84-player field in par-4 scoring at 8-under 3.73.

Chiang ranked second in par-5 scoring at 7-under 4.42.

Vesga tied for sixth in par-3 scoring at 1-under 2.92.

Bradley tied for seventh in par-4 scoring at 1-under 3.97.

Vesga and Chiang made 13 birdies apiece, tied for sixth-most in the field, while Kaur tied for 10th with 12 birdies.

STAT OF THE DAY 
207 – Gurleen Kaur’s 54-hole score of 207 tied the fourth-best total in program history, and her 9-under-par tied the second-best score to par in program history, trailing only Hayley Davis’ 16-under 200 at the 2015 NCAA San Antonio Regional.

TOP QUOTE

“I’m really excited for Gurleen. She consistently plays well, puts in good rounds and fights for every shot, but she hadn’t won a tournament yet, so it was great to see her get a win that she really deserved,” head coach Jay Goble said. “The really cool thing about this team is they believe they’re going to continue to get better every day. We talk a lot about the one percent rule, that we’re just trying to get a little bit better every single day, and it’s nice to see that they’re buying into that. To see their hard work rewarded, especially at this time of year, is really awesome.”

WHAT'S NEXT 
Baylor has wrapped up its regular season and next competes at the 2019 Big 12 Championship, which runs April 14-16 at Golf Club of Oklahoma in Broken Arrow, Okla.