Oct. 12, 2016
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's golf team will encounter arguably one of its toughest fields of the 2016-17 campaign this weekend when it travels to the Bay Area to compete in the Stanford Intercollegiate, Oct. 14-16, in Stanford, Calif.
The three-day, 54-hole tournament, which will be contested on the par-71, 6,130-yard Stanford Golf Course, is scheduled to commence Friday and Saturday with tee times off holes 1 and 10 at 8:30 a.m. PT, while Sunday's final round is slated for a 7:30 a.m. PT start. A live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat will be available on GoAztecs.com.
Now in its 21st year, the Stanford Intercollegiate is hosted by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, an avid golfer who served as U.S. Secretary of State from 2005-09. Dr. Rice is now the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
The Aztecs, who stand at No. 32 in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin ratings, will square off against 12 additional schools ranked among the top 50, including Stanford (2), USC (3), UCLA (5), Georgia (6), Florida (7), Northwestern (17), Oklahoma State (18), Arizona State (22), San José State (29), Colorado (38), California (41) and Pepperdine (46), while Washington, Iowa State, San Francisco and UC Davis round out the list of competing teams.
Sixth-year SDSU head coach Leslie Spalding will employ the same lineup utilized in the team's winning effort at the Golfweek Conference Challenge in Colorado last month, including seniors Sirene Blair (South Jordan, Utah) and Natalie Vivaldi (Oceanside, Calif.), who will be joined by juniors Georgia Lacey (Del Mar, Calif., Haleigh Krause (Eugene, Ore.) and Mila Chaves (Asunción, Paraguay).
Vivaldi was the Aztecs' top golfer at the Golfweek Conference Challenge after tying for fifth on the individual leaderboard with a 2-under-par 214, highlighted by a collegiate-best 67 in the second round, while Blair and Chaves tied for 10th at 1-over 217. In addition, Krause landed in the 14th spot at 3-over 219, while Lacey tied for 26th with a 6-over 222.
Blair, who finds herself at No. 17 in the latest Golfweek individual rankings, leads the Scarlet and Black with a 70.00 scoring average after two events, while Vivaldi occupies the second spot with an average of 71.50 strokes per round.
San Diego State will be returning to "The Farm" for the first time since competing in the NCAA Stanford Regional last May, where it finished 12th out of 18 squads. Four of the Aztecs' five starters from that visit return this year, including Chaves, who tied for 18th with a 6-over 219. Vivaldi also competed at the regional as a member of the Colorado team, tying for 86th at 25-over 238.
Designed in 1930 by renowned architects William Bell and George C. Thomas, Stanford Golf Course is consistently rated as one of the finest in the nation. In 2009, the course was selected as the third-best collegiate track in the United States following a Golf Channel survey of 160 coaches and was ranked fifth-best in the country according to Golfweek in 2010. Throughout the years, Stanford Golf Course has played host to numerous amateur and professional events, including U.S. Open qualifying, U.S. Junior Amateur qualifying, NCAA Women's Championships, NCAA Regionals, as well as a former Senior PGA Tour event, The Gathering at The Farm.
The Aztecs last competed at the Stanford Intercollegiate during head coach Leslie Spalding's first season on Montezuma Mesa in October 2011, finishing 12th out of 16 teams with a combined 23-over 875.
Bronte Law of UCLA is the two-time defending medalist at the Stanford Intercollegiate after claiming her second straight individual crown last season with an 8-under 205. Meanwhile, the host Cardinal came away with the team championship a year ago following a shared title with USC in 2014.
After this weekend's event, San Diego State will wrap up its fall schedule when it travels to the Silver State for the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, Oct. 23-25, at Boulder Creek Golf Course in Boulder City, Nev.