EUGENE, Ore. – Junior Taylor Totland (+1) fired a 69 Sunday to advance as an individual to the final round of stroke play at the 2016 NCAA Championships at the par-72, 6,369-yard Eugene Country Club. The 19th-ranked Paladins (+24) concluded the day in 20th place.
Monday’s round will be shown live on the Golf Channel beginning at 11:50 a.m. PT. Totland, who was the sixth-highest individual not on an advancing team, will tee off of No. 1 at 1 p.m. and will play in a group with individuals August Kim (E) from Purdue and Rio Watanabe (E) of Ohio State.
Totland, who earned All-American honorable mention accolades in 2015, notched three birdies, including two in her last three holes, to finish the round in a tie for 24th. Duke’s Virginia Elena Carta (-13) leads the field after carding a 66 on Sunday.
Freshman Haylee Harford (+5), the 2016 SoCon Freshman of the Year, birdied No. 14, carded a 1-over 73 with birdies on No. 1 and No. 14 to tie for 58th, and sophomore Alice Chen (+9), the 2016 SoCon Co-Player of the Year, birdied No. 10 and No. 17 to tie for 90th with a 76 on Sunday. Sophomore Jacqueline Bendrick (+11) and senior Valentina Romero (+11) tied for 100th. Bendrick scored three birdies, including back-to-back birdies on No. 15 and No. 16, to card a 75, and Romero added a 76 with a birdie on No. 5.
No. 2 Southern California (-4) remains in the team lead entering Monday’s round. No. 3 UCLA (-2) and fifth-ranked Duke (-2) are tied for second, while 13th-ranked Washington is in fourth. No. 12 Stanford completes the top five.
“While we fell short of the top eight for match play, I couldn’t be more proud of this group of girls and the progress our program has made in the four years that (assistant coach) Jeff (Hull) and I have been at Furman,” said Furman head coach Kelley Hester, the 2016 SoCon Coach of the Year. “We have a young team, graduating only one senior, and strong talent coming in over the next several years. A top-20 finish at the NCAA Championships shows that our program is headed in the right direction.”
Furman was part of a 24-team field that played under the NCAA Championship’s revised format, which was instituted last year. The teams played 54 holes of stroke play over the course of three days, concluding with Sunday’s round. The top 15 teams moved on to one additional round of stroke play, which will be held Monday. The top eight teams at the end of Monday’s round will move into the match-play single elimination bracket. Tuesday will feature the quarterfinals and semifinals, and the finals will be played Wednesday afternoon.
Live scoring of the NCAA Championships is available at www.golfstat.com or by logging onto www.furmanpaladins.com. The Golf Channel is providing unprecedented prime time coverage of the NCAA Women’s Golf Championships. Twelve and a half hours of live event programming will be shown starting on Monday, and concluding with the match play finals on Wednesday afternoon.