Florida never had a chance to move up the leaderboard in Sunday’s final round at the Landfall Tradition in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Rain in the Wilmington area led to the cancellation of Round 3, and all results from Saturday’s Round 2 became final.
Florida finished 13th as a team in the final tournament before a four-month break. The team’s best finisher, sophomore Marta Perez, cracked the top 30, but no Florida golfer finished below par.
“It's important for us to own today,” coach Emily Glaser said in a release after Round 2 on Saturday. “Each player was a little different but overall just not enough discipline shown today to be successful. This is part of our journey and an important learning day.”
Perez finished tied for 28th at 3 over for the tournament. She was even after Round 1, but shot 3 over on Saturday.
Fellow sophomore Carlotta Ricolfi finished tied for 39th at 5 over. Like Perez, Ricolfi was solid in Round 1, shooting 1 over, before struggling in Round 2, where she was 4 over with a score of 76.
Prior to the tournament, redshirt freshman Elin Esborn and true freshman Addie Baggarly were moved into the one and two spots in Florida’s lineup. However, neither of them performed well at Landfall, with Baggarly finishing tied for 47th at 6 over and Esborn finishing tied for 65th at 8 over. Both have shown glimpses of potential at times this year, with four top-30 finishes between them, but this was Esborn’s worst finish of the season and Baggarly’s second worst.
Senior Taylor Tomlinson finished tied for 55th at 7 over. She shot a respectable 73 on Friday, but her 78 on Saturday was the worst single-round score of any UF golfer at the tournament.
Tomlinson was coming off of a season-best 12th-place finish at the Windy City Classic and appeared to have turned a corner after failing to finish the top 30 in the first two tournaments of the year. However, her performance in North Carolina was another step back.
Florida had improved in each tournament before Landfall, and missing out on a third day certainly hurt the Gators, but they know that they still have much to work on before the spring schedule if they want to defend their SEC title.
“We are better than the score we posted, and that happens sometimes,” Glaser said. “We just have to keep improving and make sure we put in the work that it is going to take to be more consistent down the road."
Gators individual results:
Marta Perez (+3) T28
Carlotta Ricolfi (+5) T39
Addie Baggarly (+6) T47
Taylor Tomlinson (+7) T55
Elin Esborn (+8) T65
You can follow Tyler Nettuno on Twitter @TylerNettuno, and contact him at tnettuno@alligator.org.
The Gators women's golf team finished 13th at the Landfall Tradition in North Carolina. Marta Perez had Florida's highest score at 3 over par, good for a share of 28th place.
