Lauren Walsh claimed a third-place medal after 54 holes at the ACC Women’s Golf Championship and helped secure Wake Forest the top seeding for the matchplay stages at Pawleys Island.
Walsh finished in a share of third place with teammate Virunpat Olankiktunchai , Virginia’s Amanda Sambach and Louisville’s Kendall Griffin on one-under despite shooting a third-round 73.
Two birdies in her last six holes propelled the Castlewarden native into the podium positions having been three-over for the round through eleven holes.
The Kildare woman was unable to carry the momentum from her second round 67 and quickly fell the wrong side of par with two bogeys in her first five holes.
A birdie on the sixth arrested that run before she gave that shot back immediately on the 7th. A fourth dropped shot of the day arrived on the eleventh before she finished with a flourish after birdies on 13 and 18.
Walsh finished a mammoth nine strokes adrift of Phoebe Brinker of Duke who was a comfortable six shots clear of her compatriot Erica Shepherd in second on ten-under.
Wake Forest are the top seeds heading into the matchplay stage and they will take on University of Virginia in the semi-final.
Walsh is set to tackle Amanda Sambach in her singles match on Saturday and she is looking forward to the change in format.
“Matchplay is a different game compared to strokeplay. It’s a great course for matchplay and it’s something that all of us on the team really enjoy, we have a lot of internationals who tend to play matchplay so it’s going to be a fun day,” she said.
Sara Byrne and Mairead Martin bowed out after 54 holes of strokeplay as both Miami and Louisville didn’t advance to the knockout rounds.
Cork native Byrne suffered a disappointing day as she closed with a five-over 77, her worst score of the week while Martin struggled to a nine-over 81 for a fourteen-over total.
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