Official Championship Page
Tee Times (1st Round)
Golfstat Live Scoring
2020-21 Season Statistics
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Sixteen pairings with 46 student-athletes are ready to tee it up for 54 holes at the 2021 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Women’s Golf Championship that starts on Friday morning from the University Club of Kentucky.
The par 72, 6,014-yard layout on the Big Blue Course will be utilized by the women’s field after playing the Wildcat Course back in the 2019 edition.
Players will start off split tees (No. 1, No. 10) on Friday morning starting at 8 a.m. ET in nine-minute intervals. Fans are welcome to attend and are encouraged to walk with groups and assist in the live scoring that will be offered through Golfstat. Masking will be mandatory inside the clubhouse area at all times.
Teams will start to arrive throughout the day on Thursday for a practice round in advance of the tournament. Some teams have already played the course this spring during the Findlay Spring Invitational on March 22-23.
Regionally ranked Findlay (No. 2) and Tiffin (No. 5) headline a very talented field consisting of nine full scoring lineups and two individuals (Hillsdale, Lake Erie). The Oilers are back-to-back conference champions, winning their inaugural run in 2018 at Four Bridges Country Club and securing another trophy in 2019. The 2020 championship was on pause due to COVID-19.
Several awards will be presented to the top finishers at the tournament. The top 8 performers, including ties, will be recognized with all-conference recognition. The medalist will also be awarded along with the inaugural presentation of the Elite 23 Award, presented to the highest cumulative GPA with at least sophomore (athletic and academic) classification competing in this year’s event.
Findlay, ranked top 10 by the WGCA for the duration of the spring, is tops in the conference in scoring average by almost 10 strokes per round with a 303.5 average. Tiffin is second at 312.2 and Walsh is third at 324.2. The Oilers have recorded the top 18-hole score this season with a 289 (+1) at the same University of Club of Kentucky in their third and final round.
The top players to keep an eye on include two-time conference athlete of the week Jill Schmitmeyer, who enters the postseason as the league leader in scoring average (75.67). She is coming off a tournament win at the Cav Classic and has a pair of individual wins as part of six top-10 finishes in 2020-21.
Not far behind Schmitmeyer is Alice Putoud of Tiffin, who also has six top-10’s to her credit. She comes in with a 75.81 scoring average through 16 rounds counted, including a low of 70 (-2) at the William Beall Fall Classic. The Dragons also count on great numbers from Emily Koehler and Amanda Johansson, all-conference honorees and top 10 scoring average leaders in the Great Midwest this year.
The Oilers’ depth is prevalent with Meredith Wipper, Kristina Kniesly, Gabby Woods and Danbi Kim, all top 10 scorers in the conference this year.
The lowest round of the season has come courtesy of the senior Wipper, the 2019 championship medalist, who fired a 67 (-5) in the third round of the Findlay Spring Invite at the same Big Blue Course. An impressive 17 different rounds of even par or better have been carded by the women’s golf student-athletes in 2020-21.
Walsh has three of the league’s top 20 scorers with Isabelle Castro, Madison Ardelean and Maria Contreas Luna. It might be a smaller sample size with 12 rounds counted, but Malone all-conference performer Christina Williams is always a threat and has a medalist victory and a pair of top-5 finishes on her resume this season.
The Great Midwest is affiliated with the East Region and the officially NCAA Selection Announcement for the championships is scheduled for Monday, April 26, through a press release. The winner of the conference tournament receives an AQ into the NCAA East Regional. The 2019 East Regional was hosted by Kentucky Wesleyan.
The 2021 NCAA Championship final field will compete at TPC Michigan in Detroit on May 11-15.