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Baylor women's golf travels to Darius Rucker Intercollegiate

Posted at 6:16 PM, Mar 07, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-07 19:16:49-05

WACO, TX — Baylor women’s golf returns to action with the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, which runs Friday through Sunday on the par-71, 6,266-yard course at Long Cove Club in Hilton Head Island, S.C.

No. 36-ranked Baylor will compete in a 17-team field that features 11 of the nation’s top-20 teams in the latest Golfstat rankings. BU faces No. 16 Alabama, No. 6 Arkansas, No. 11 Auburn, No. 3 Duke, No. 19 Florida State, No. 23 Furman, No. 38 Georgia, LSU, No. 33 North Carolina, No. 15 Northwestern, Oklahoma State, No. 10 South Carolina, No. 4 UCLA, No. 7 Vanderbilt, No. 14 Virginia and No. 13 Wake Forest.

Baylor’s lineup is led by sophomore Diane Baillieux in the No. 1 spot for the third time in six team tournaments this season. Junior Erica Chiang is in the No. 2 spot making her second-consecutive appearance in the BU lineup, followed by No. 3 senior Maria Vesga, who is competing in the lineup for a 36th time out of 37 team events since she enrolled as a freshman prior to the 2016 spring season.

Sophomore Gurleen Kaur is playing at No. 4 and making her 10thconsecutive appearance in the BU lineup, and mid-year enrollee freshman Emma Bradley is at No. 5 for a second consecutive time since joining the program at the start of the spring semester.

Baylor is making its third appearance at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, which has been hosted annually by South Carolina since 2012. BU took seventh place in a 17-team field in 2017 and 13th in an 18-team field last season.

Vesga has played in both of Baylor’s previous DRI appearances, where she tied for 38th place at 11-over in 2017 and tied for 36th place at 12-over in 2018. Baillieux and Kaur tied for 56th place at 16-over when they played the Darius Rucker as freshmen last spring.

Baylor is paired with Arkansas and Wake Forest for Friday’s first round, which tees off at 7:30 a.m. CT with tee times from the first and 10th tees. BU players will begin on the back-9 with Bradley up first at 10:10 a.m. She’ll be followed in 10-minute intervals by Kaur, Vesga, Chiang and Baillieux, respectively.

Kaur enters the tournament ranked No. 87 nationally in the latest Golfweek collegiate individual rankings, while Vesga is No. 135 and Baillieux is No. 161.