Coastal Carolina women win nation’s largest college golf tournament

The Coastal Carolina women’s golf team on Tuesday won the nation’s largest collegiate tournament.

The Chanticleers shot a final-round 6-under-par 282 at Cougar Point to claim an eight-shot win at 7-over 871 over Chattanooga in the Edwin Watts/Kiawah Island Spring Classic, which featured 41 teams and more than 200 players.

“Putting 41 teams on a golf course all at once is a little intimidating sometimes to look at,” Chanticleers coach Katie Quinney said. “When there are 41 teams anything can happen. I was proud of them for hanging tough and trusting themselves and their games and playing really well today.”

Tournament host College of Charleston finished third, 13 strokes back at 20 over. The event was played on both Oak Point and Cougar Point.

The win is CCU’s 14th under Quinney since she began leading the program during the spring of 2009, and she believes this team can surpass any of her previous teams’ achievements.

“I think this is the best team we’ve ever had on paper, so if we keep playing like this I think the potential is limitless for them,” Quinney said.

The Chants were eight shots behind Chattanooga following a 3-over 291 in the opening round and were tied for the lead with Charleston after a 298 in the second round.

Each Chant recorded at least one round under par in the tournament and was even par or better in the final round.

“If anyone had a bad round someone was there to pick them up,” Quinney said. “It was an all-around good effort.”

Junior Barbora Bakova of the Czech Republic shot a 3-under 69 to pace CCU in the final round, while freshman Marie Lunackova of the Czech Republic, senior Lena Schaeffner of Germany and senior Bailey Cocca of New York shot 71s.

Sophomore Malene Krolboll Hansen of Denmark shot a 72 and tied for fourth to lead CCU individually at 1-under 215. Fatimo Cano of Troy and Emily McLennan of Chattanooga shared medalist honors at 210.

Cocca tied for ninth at 2-over 218, Bakova tied for 13th at 220, Schaeffner tied for 15th at 221 and Lunackova tied for 42nd at 227, bouncing back from an opening 82. Hansen posted a 68 in the opening round.

Quinney said the 6-under round is one shy of the program record, shot a couple years ago at Kiawah Island’s Turtle Point course.

The Edwin Watts tournament was CCU’s second of the spring. The Chants finished sixth in the 12-team Florida State Match-Up on Feb. 14, finishing ahead of three teams ranked in the Golfstat.com top-25 in Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri.

CCU next travels to the Bay Area Intercollegiate from March 7-8 at Meadow Club in Fairfax, Calif.

“So far out of our six rounds in the spring, only one of them has been disappointing,” Quinney said. “Hopefully we take a lot of positives into San Francisco, where we’ll see two top-10 teams and a bunch in the top 40. I think we have a lot of confidence, hopefully we’ll only be moving forward from here.”

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 10:08 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women win nation’s largest college golf tournament."