Clemson Women Head to ACC Championship

CLEMSON, S.C.—The Clemson women’s golf team will compete in the ACC Tournament for the second time when J.T. Horton’s team travels to Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. this weekend.  The Tigers will be one of 11 team in the field that includes nine teams  ranked in the top 55 of the latest Golfstat rankings.  The three day, 54-hole tournament runs April 17-19 on the 6,089-yard course.

The 27^th annual ACC Women’s Golf Championship will be held at Sedgefield Country Club for the eighth straight year. The par 72 course is the home of the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Invitational, the last tournament prior to the beginning of The Tour Championship.

Clemson is coming off its best team performance of the year, a 10^th place finish in a field of 18 teams at the Rebel Intercollegiate at the University of Mississippi Course. Jessica Hoang was Clemson’s top golfer with a 224 total, good enough for a No. 32 finish.

For the year, Lauren Salazar has been Clemson’s top performer with a 76.13 stroke average. Her No. 22 place finish in Puerto Rico was the best by a Tiger this year.  Hoang has the second best stroke average with a 76.46 figure, an improvement by nearly three strokes per round over last year when she was the No. 5 player on the team.  This year she has played No. 2 most of the year and tied the school record for the low individual round with  a 68 at the Cougar Classic in September.

Sloan Shanahan has played just one spring event due to injury, but the 2014 All-ACC selection is back in the lineup for the 2015 ACC Championship. She has a 76.53 average for the year, but her final round average of 73.8 is best on the team.

Marisa Messana will be the only freshman in the lineup for Clemson at the ACC Championships.  She has a 76.75 average for the year and had a season best 69 at the Schooner Fall Classic, one of two rounds in the 60s by a Clemson golfers this year.

McKenzie Talbert also will be in the field at the ACC Tournament for the second straight year. It will be the 20th straight tournament for the sophomore  who has seen her score count towards the Clemson team score in 14 of 18 rounds this year.