HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – The 2023 Southern Conference Women’s Golf Championship will be played Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at Moss Creek Golf Club in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. This year’s tournament will be played at the par-72, 6,036-yard Moss Creek South course.
 
This season’s tournament has a traditional format of one round a day over three days.
 
The league’s nine teams – The Citadel, ETSU, Furman, Mercer, UNC Greensboro, Samford, Chattanooga, Western Carolina and Wofford – will be competing for the SoCon tournament title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals. The individual medalist will also earn an automatic regional qualification if she is not on the winning team.
 
Furman is the defending champion after winning the SoCon title last season at Barefoot Landing Resort’s Dye Golf Course in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Paladins, who have won six of the last seven championships played, posted a 35-over-par 899 to claim a 4-stroke victory over Wofford to capture the title a year ago. Furman’s top returner is Anna Morgan, whom finished the regular-season with the second-best stroke average in the conference at 72.59.
 
Chattanooga’s Dorota Zalewska is the defending individual champion. The senior shot a 1-under-par 215 to win the 2022 title and comes into the 2023 championship with the best stroke-average, 72.37, in the SoCon this season. The Mocs will be looking for their first title since 2014, which was the last of five straight championships for the program.
 
Western Carolina comes into the SoCon championship with the most team wins in the league with four. Freshman Brie Mapanao (73.29) and sophomore Elizabeth Lohbauer (73.33) are ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in stroke-average this season among SoCon players.
 
Furman enters this year’s tournament as the No. 62 team in the Golfstat rankings. Mercer (No. 101), ETSU (No. 105) and Western Carolina (No. 108) are ranked right outside the top 100 in the Golfstat rankings. Morgan and Zalewska are ranked No. 78 and 80, respectively, nationally to hold down spots in the top 100 in the individual rankings.
 
Four of the SoCon’s nine squads – Furman, Mercer, Samford and Western Carolina – have won tournaments this season. Six players in this year’s field – Furman’s Morgan, Mercer’s Carol Pyon and Mikayla Dubnik, Samford’s Christian Williams and Western Carolina’s Lohbauer and Madison Isaacson – have earned individual titles during the 2022-23 campaign.
 
The Southern Conference Women’s Golf Championship was first conducted in 1994. Furman owns the most team titles with 19, including the first nine, while Chattanooga has won five titles, all consecutively from 2010-14. Western Carolina owns two team titles (2003 and 2007) and ETSU (2021) and former SoCon member College of Charleston (2006) boast one each.
 
The Paladins have produced a league-best 17 individual medalists, while Chattanooga has seven and UNCG and Western Carolina and former members App State and College of Charleston claim one each.
 
The tournament tees off with threesomes at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Live stats can be found here.