Baylor Women’s Golf Climbs to 13th Place at NCAA Championship
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Baylor women’s golf moved up three spots into 13th place after shooting 2-over-par 290 in Sunday’s third round at the NCAA Championship. The Bears sit at 27-over 891 and have made the 15-team cut to advance to the final round of stroke play at Grayhawk Golf Club.
Baylor (+27) is 10 shots back of eighth place, which is the cut the advance to match play following Monday’s fourth round of stroke play. Stanford (-18) leads the field, followed by Duke (+2), Oklahoma State (+4), Texas (+6), Ole Miss (+11), Arizona State (+13), Wake Forest (+16), Florida State (+17), Arizona (+18), Oregon (+19), LSU (+20), South Carolina (+23), Baylor (+27), Auburn (+28) and UCLA (+31).
Nine teams were cut from the field following the third round – Michigan State (+34), Kent State (+35), Georgia (+38), Kentucky (+38), Michigan (+39), Virginia Tech (+42), Maryland (+42), USC (+43) and Alabama (+52).
After shooting 20-over-par 308 in Friday’s first round, the Bears trimmed 15 strokes off their score with a 5-over 293 in the second round and then reduced three more strokes with a 2-over 290 on Sunday.
Baylor’s best third-round score came from freshman Rosie Belsham, who was at even-par or better all day and finished at 2-under 70 to move into a tie for 59th place at 8-over 224. The Bears started on the back-9, and Belsham began her round with birdies on Nos. 11 and 12 to get to 2-under. After making the turn at 1-under, she made a bogey on No. 3 to slip back to even-par before consecutive birdies on Nos. 5 and 6, followed by three-straight pars to end the round.
BU also got an even-par 72 from Gurleen Kaur, who recovered nicely after starting her round with back-to-back bogeys. She made the turn at 2-over, then played a bogey-free back-9 with birdies on Nos. 1 and 4.
Britta Snyder and Elodie Chapelet finished off the team scorecard with matching rounds of 2-over 74. Snyder made the turn at 1-over, but consecutive bogeys on Nos. 5 and 6 had her at 4-over thru 15 holes. She sank the Bears’ first eagle on the tournament on the next hole to get back to 2-over. Chapelet was 4-over thru 14 holes before making consecutive birdies on Nos. 6 and 7 to recover to 2-over. Chapelet is tied for 23rd place individually at 3-over 219, while Kaur and Snyder joined Belsham in a tie for 59th place at 8-over 224. Hannah Karg shot 7-over 79 in the third round and is tied for 119th place at 19-over 235.
STAT OF THE DAY I
4 – Baylor has advanced through the 15-team cut in each of its last four NCAA Championship appearances in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2021. BU had never finished in the top-15 at nationals prior to this stretch. The Bears need to move up three spots on the leaderboard to record their fourth top-10 finish in the last six NCAA Championships (2nd in 2015, t-5th in 2017, t-8th in 2018).
STAT OF THE DAY II
9 – Baylor is one of nine teams to record four top-15 NCAA Championship finishes since 2015, joining Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, Texas and USC.
WHAT’S NEXT
Baylor will again tee off on the back-9 for Monday’s final round of stroke play. The Bears are paired with Auburn and UCLA starting at 12:10 p.m. CT. Karg is up first, and she’ll be followed in 11-minute intervals by Belsham, Snyder, Kaur and Chapelet, respectively. The top eight teams following Monday’s round advance to match play to determine the national champion. Live scoring of the 2021 NCAA Championship is available on Golfstat.