It wasn’t the conditions that incoming schools would have expected when playing in a golf tournament in San Diego. The third round began with temperatures in the mid 50s with light rain, and ended with no rain but gusty winds whipping through the hills in northern San Diego at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe.
The conditions clearly had an effect on play as only two of 75 golfers in the field shot under-par rounds in the third round of the Lamkin Invitational.
Playing at their home course, the weather had an effect on the San Diego State women’s golf team. They had their worst team performance of the tournament in the final round and shot 13 strokes worse than they had in the second round. After the first two rounds, the Aztecs were in seventh place, but at the end of the third round, the team finished in tenth place with a team total of 39-over-par.
San Jose State won the team competition with a team total of 9-over-par — three strokes ahead of second-place Stanford University. The Spartans came into the event ranked No. 13 in the nation according to Golfweek rankings. That ranking should go up after beating a field that included nine teams in Golfweek’s top 25.
Stanford sophomore Rachel Heck, the reigning NCAA Individual Champion, won the individual title for her seventh career win. She had the lowest score of the third round with a 4-under-par round of 68. She also had a hole-in-one in the first round of the tournament on the 141-yard par 3 14th hole.
Paired with Heck for all three rounds was Japanese SDSU freshman Anika Sato. The hole before Heck’s ace, Sato holed-out from 138 yards for an eagle in the first round. Sato finished in a tie for 12th place at 6-over-par, the lowest Aztec score of the tournament. Her teammate, senior Sara Kjellker, finished just behind her in 15th place with a score of 7-over-par.
Although Sato plays The Farms so often, the third round conditions made it a completely new course.
“Since I came here last summer, I’ve never played in the rain even though I’m at The Farms almost every day,” Sato said. “In Japan, there’s a rainy season and I used to play in the rain, so for me it’s not a big deal. But still, The Farms is a tough course and I had to use strategy a lot. It was a good experience for me.”
Sato played well in the rain, managing to shoot a 1-over-par 37 through her first nine holes. She got another bogey on the par-4 4th hole before scoring a triple bogey on the par-4 6th hole.
She started the 6th hole with a good drive that left her on the right side of the narrow fairway. With wind blowing in her face, Sato and her coach settled on a club that wouldn’t get her over the green and would settle below the hole. However, her ball got caught up in the wind and landed in the left greenside bunker with her ball half sunk into the sand.
Sato’s shot out of the bunker went over the back of the green and left her with a tough pitch to get back onto the green. Her pitch rolled past the hole and she three-putted her way to a triple bogey.
“I was kind of sad at the time and I didn’t have confidence,” Sato said. “But coach was like ‘No, you can do it. You got to trust yourself.’ I had four holes after the triple and I told myself ‘Do what you can do.’”
She was able to finish her last four holes with par’s on each hole to finish with a 5-over-par round of 77.
Junior Bernice Ilas finished in a tie for 28th with a final score of 11-over-par. Sophomore Anna Lina Otten finished in a tie for 54th and junior Samantha Lee finished in a tie for 64th, shooting 19-over-par and 22-over-par respectively, to round off the SDSU team.
The Aztecs had two golfers compete as individuals, meaning their scores did not contribute to the team total. Senior April Ranches finished tied for 41st with a score of 14-over-par. Freshman Estibaly Garcia Rubio finished tied for 44th with a score of 16-over-par.
The Scarlet and Black’s next event is the Juli Inkster at Meadow Club Invitational hosted by San Jose State in Fairfax on March 7 and 8.
