No. 8 UF took home its third consecutive and fifth overall victory of the season on Tuesday, widening its lead from Monday’s back-to-back rounds and giving Florida its most single-season victories since Emily Glaser became coach in 2012.
The Gators finished the 54-hole tournament at 6 under par with a total score of 858. Indiana and Clemson rounded out the top three with scores of 5 and 6 over par, respectively.
“We really had it going for a while today. It was fun to watch. The course was very scorable this morning, and we took advantage of it,” Glaser said in a release. “The thing I was most proud of this week was the conversation the team was having after the round. They were already talking about the future and how we are going to get better. This is a motivated group, and they are so much fun to coach.”
Florida enjoyed an 11-stroke victory largely due to the efforts of freshman Samantha Wagner. The Windermere native finished in a tie for fifth place, her second top-10 finish of the year.
Wagner finished the tournament with a 4-under 212 due to consecutive under-par rounds on Day 1.
With three birdies on the front nine and her only bogey on the fourth hole, Wagner was heading toward a potential top-three finish.
But she followed up a birdie on the 10th hole with bogeys on the 13th, 16th and 17th holes, causing her to fall two spots in the final round.
“I thought it was a really good week,” Wagner said. “I felt pretty solid about it, there’s still a lot of stuff to learn from, but that was pretty good.”
Joining Wagner in the top 10, junior Kelly Grassel (75-67-71) managed to climb up from her 39th-place standing.
Her rise up the leaderboard could be attributed to her second-round score of 5 under par, which featured five birdies with four on the front nine alone. The junior managed to stay one stroke below par to clinch a tie for seventh place.
Junior Maria Torres finished the tournament at 1 over par after shooting even par in Tuesday’s round.
However, the back nine did not go her way. The junior closed with four bogeys.
After birdies on the third, fifth and 10th holes, however, Torres managed to finish just one stroke over par and in a tie for 13th place.
Junior Karolina Vlckova was one of just two Gators to improve across the three rounds. The Unhošt, Czech Republic, native ended the third round at even par and plus 3 for the tournament.
Vlckova had struggled the last two rounds due to three double-bogeys across the two days.
But she managed to keep her final round even by matching every bogey with a birdie throughout the 18 holes. Vlckova finished just outside the top 25, landing in a tie for 27th place.
Sophomore Taylor Tomlinson improved eight and five strokes between the three rounds. However, paired with a day one score of 11 over par, the Gainesville native finished in a tie for 66th place after climbing 19 spots in the third round.
Florida’s next tournament will be the Clemson Invitation in Sunset, South Carolina, on April 1. This will be UF’s last event of the regular season, as it begins Southeastern Conference Championship play on April 15.
Karolina Vlckova (right) celebrates with coach Emily Glaser during the 2015 SunTrust Gator Invitational at UF's Mark Bostick Golf Course.
