BYU women’s golf took fourth place in the Dale McNamara Invitational at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, on Oct. 14-15.
The ladies’ lineup for the tournament contained up-and-coming freshman Kanyanol (Naji) Aramkul, breakout sophomore Maria Jose “MJ” Barragan, junior Sunbin Seo, sophomore Lilly Denunzio and senior Alexa Udom.
This tournament was performed on a course that has had its ups and downs. Cedar Ridge Country Club has some significant history behind it. It was built in the late 1960s and named America’s top 100 golf courses by GolfDigest from 1977 to 1985. In 1983, the course hosted the U.S. Women’s Open. From that point until 2016, it went through a rough patch. The bunkers become too soft, circular and ovally.
Its saving grace were the treatments done in 2016 by University of Oklahoma graduate student Tripp Davis. He removed the biggest annoyances by restyling the bunkers to have “more shapely edges,” as GolfDigest put it, and reorganizing the landscape of the trees and fixing the greens. Although it is well past its prime, last season, it still ranked seventh out of all Oklahoma golf courses but still has not cracked the top 100 in three decades.
With plenty of sun and wind blowing from 5-10 mph and getting as high as 18 mph by the end of the second round, the Cougars fared very well overall with its fourth place finish out of 16 teams in the pool. They shot a 301-293-307-901 on their scorecard which puts them at 49-over par.
Aramkul (72-68-77-217) was the top finisher for BYU placing sixth in the tournament shooting four over par. She tied for No. 55 at the Dick McGuire Invitational, the first tournament of the season, and No. 17 at the Red Raider Invitational a few weeks ago. Her scores show notable signs of improvement. Getting a top-10 finish is an impressive benchmark and has potentially helped her keep a spot in the lineup for the rest of the season.
Barragan (76-72-74-222) had her hot streak of top-10 finishes come to a close at three with a tie for fifteenth shooting nine over par. Meanwhile, Seo (77-76-76-229) shot 16-over par with a No. 34 finish, Denunzio (77-77-80-234) tied for No. 47 by shooting 21-over par, and Udom (76-79-80-235) shot 22-over par to tie for No. 52.
The Cougars will travel to their final tournament of the fall portion of their season in Kailua Kona, Hawaii for the Nanea Tournament on Oct. 28-30.