Florida’s fifth place finish exposes areas in need of work

Posted Sep 15, 2010 by Aaron Oberlin

Updated Sep 16, 2010 at 02:24 AM

Some solid individual performances helped the Florida women’s golf team place fifth at the Cougar Classic yesterday. The women combined for a team score of 875 (292-294-289, +11). North Carolina won with an 860.

The Florida golfers said, however, they can shoot better scores. They just need to use their putters better.

Mia Piccio led the way for the Gators, shooting one under par for the tournament. Streaks of birdies and bogeys characterized the final day for Piccio, who placed sixth in the individual standings.

Evan Jensen finished just behind her, shooting even – good enough for eighth individually. She started the day with inconsistent play, going par-bogey-birdie-bogey through four holes before settling down with six straight pars.

“I started really focusing in on some putts on the back nine and made a couple,” said Jensen. “I made one for par on 13 that really jumpstarted my putting. I got up and down from a bunker on 13 and broke through and made a putt to make par. Just seeing a putt go in helped me out. I didn’t miss a fairway today. It was just a matter of making some putts.”

Jessica Yadloczky was another player who started off shaky. She rebounded with birdies on holes No. 8 and 10 to get back even before she bogeyed 12 and 14 to finish with a 74.

“I statistically hit the ball very well. I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. I think that if a couple of more putts would have dropped for me, I would have been in the red numbers all three days. I felt really good about my game,” said Yadloczky.

“If all of us make a couple more putts per round, I think we would be tops in the nation,” she said. “I think we have a good enough team to get better each tournament in the fall and play well in the postseason.”

Florida coach Jan Dowling said she liked the performances from her golfers.

But, like her players, she sees room for improvement.

“It was not our best tournament,” she said, “but we are coming away from this knowing what we need to work on. Overall as a team, we look at our short game and our putting. We need to work on that in the next couple of weeks, and it will get better for sure.”

The Gators will see how their putting progresses at their next tournament on Sept. 24, when they travel to the Legends Club in Nashville, Tenn., for the Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship.