HONOLULU -- Three BYU players post their personal best competitive scores to assist BYU in a sixth place finish of 17 teams in Hawaii's Rainbow Invitational.
Sophomore Margaret Gibby led the Cougars in the final round with a personal best of 72 and also tied for an 11th place finish individually (74-76-72--222). Freshmen Symantha Mendenhall and Danielle von Arnim also posted their personal best with 75 and 77 in the second round. Mendenhall finished tied for 28th (78-75-75--228), and von Arnim finished tied for 66th (85-77-78--240). Sophomore Natalie Newren finished strong with a final score of 73 for a top 20 finish (75-77-73--225). Senior Jessica Gardner posted a 76-74-78--228 to tie for 28th.
"We have had a lot of steady play this week," said BYU head coach Sue Nyhus. "From tee to green we've had solid golf, but we're still struggling around the greens and also coming in strong on those last few holes."
BYU shot 298 in the final round for a tournament total of 303-302-298--903 only two shots back of a top 5 finish. California won the tournament with an 18 shot lead over UCLA. Stanford's Kim Rowton won the Rainbow Invitational individually with 72-72-71--215.
"The difference between our team and the best teams is chipping," Nyhus said.
Statistics show that the top NCAA ranked teams get up-and-down around the greens 60 percent of the time while BYU holds an average of 40 percent.
"In this upcoming week we're going to work really hard on our short game to get that average down in our next tournament."
BYU heads to UNLV's Las Vegas Founders tournament Nov. 11-13 to play at Anthem C.C.
Fin.TeamScores
1California, U. of285-296-298--870
2UCLA295-301-292--888
3Stanford Univ.302-297-294--893
4New Mexico, U. of309-297-292--898
5San Francisco, U. of305-308-288--901
6Brigham Young Univ.303-302-298--903
7New Mexico State303-306-300--909
8Long Beach State307-306-300--913
9UC -- Irvine315-304-305--924
10Texas A&M Univ.313-311-302--926
11Kansas, U. of308-314-308--930
12Oregon, U. of302-314-315--931
13Northern Arizona U.317-313-302--932
14Texas Tech Univ.310-310-314--934
15San Diego State Univ.308-318-311--937
16Southern Illinois Univ.327-302-314--943
17 Hawaii, Univ. of 326-319-318--963
Fin. BYU PlayersScore
T11Margaret Gibby74-76-72--222
T21Natalie Newren 75-77-73--225
T28Jessica Gardner76-74-78--228
T28Symantha Mendenhall78-75-75--228
T66Danielle von Arnim85-77-78--240