April 1, 2016
SAN DIEGO ââ'¬" In its final tune-up prior to the Mountain West Championships, the 17th-ranked San Diego State women's golf team will travel north to wine country early next week to partake in the third annual Silverado Showdown, April 3-5, at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, Calif.
The three-day, 54-hole tournament, co-hosted by Oregon and Colorado, will be contested on the par-72, 6,206-yard Silverado North Course and will feature double tee times on holes 1 and 10 for the first two rounds, beginning at 7:30 a.m. PT, while the final 18 holes are set to commence on Tuesday in a shotgun start at 8 a.m. A live scoring link for all three rounds will be available courtesy of Golfstat on GoAztecs.com.
The elite 18-team field includes eight teams ranked among the top 50 in the latest Golfstat ratings index. SDSU will square off against Stanford (11), California (15), Oregon (23), Louisville (36), Colorado (40), New Mexico (43), Ohio State (44) and LSU (50). In addition, the Aztecs will be afforded an early look at MW rival San José State (51), while San Francisco (52), Pepperdine (53), Minnesota (62), Long Beach State (68), Gonzaga (73), Wisconsin (76), UC Davis (82) and Nebraska (114) round out the impressive list of competing schools.
For the third tournament this spring and sixth time overall, Aztec head coach Leslie Spalding will employ the starting lineup of senior Emma Henrikson (Malmö, Sweden) and junior Sirene Blair (South Jordan, Utah), along with sophomores Georgia Lacey (Del Mar, Calif.), Mila Chaves (Asunción, Paraguay) and Haleigh Krause (Eugene, Ore.).
Henrikson, who is poised to become the first SDSU All-America honoree in program history, leads the team with a 70.89 stroke average through six medal-play tournaments this season to go with four top-five finishes. The native Swede has already posted two victories on the year at the Golfweek Conference Challenge in October and the Westbrook Spring Invitational in February.
Entering the weekend, Henrikson has earned No. 5 individual ranking by Golfweek and occupies the ninth spot nationally according to Golfstat. She also leads the country in score vs. par per round (-1.28) and par-5 scoring (4.59).
Meanwhile, Blair and Lacey look to build on their momentum after each recorded a 3-1 individual record in match play at the Aztecs' home tournament, the SDSU March Mayhem, held March 21-23 at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. As a team, the Scarlet and Black placed fifth in the challenging field with a 3-1 mark in four rounds, defeating TCU, Kansas and Arizona State while falling short against eventual third-place finisher UCLA.
Prior to the Farms event, SDSU last competed in stroke play on March 1 at the Bruin Wave Invitational on the Central Coast, where it tied for fourth place at San Luis Obispo Country Club. Henrikson finished a solo third on the individual leaderboard with a 1-under 215 en route to earning Mountain West Women's Golfer of the Week honors.
SDSU skipped the Silverado Showdown last season, but competed in the inaugural edition of the event in 2014, when it finished 15th with a collective 65-over 929. Henrikson and Blair are the lone holdovers from that excursion, landing in a tie for 40th and 49th, respectively.
Oregon will be seeking to defend its team title at the Silverado Showdown from a year ago when it carded a 25-over 889 to edge Oregon State (+26) by one stroke, while another Pac-12 member Colorado (+27) followed closely behind in third.
Individually, Lucia Gutierrez of California will be looking to duplicate her medal-winning performance after firing a 4-under 212 in 2015, while Colorado's Esther Lee (2nd) and Brittany Fan (T-11th), Regan De Guzman (T-5th) of San José State, and Oregon's Caroline Inglis (T-5th) and Kelsey Ulep (T-5th) are also back in the mix.
The PGA Tour's Safeway Open, formerly known as the Frys.com Open, has been contested at Silverado since 2014 after moving from CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin and will remain at the Napa resort until at least 2020.
The North Course, which features dozens of water crossings, elevation changes and routing through historic oak trees, was recently redesigned by Johnny Miller, a former PGA Tour star, World Golf Hall of Fame Member and current lead golf analyst for NBC Sports.
Following the Silverado Showdown, San Diego State will have nearly two weeks to prepare for the Mountain West Championships, slated for April 18-20 at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.