The first round of the year for the ASU women’s golf team couldn’t have gone any better.
The Sun Devils put forth a phenomenal performance and earned the top spot after the first round at the Dale McNamara Invitational. An outstanding three players sit atop the leaderboard.
Senior Giulia Molinaro shrugged off the aches and pains from playing all summer to dominate the field with a 5-under-par 67. Behind her are sophomores Justine Lee and Daniela Ordonez, who shot matching 2-under-par 70s.
“They all did a very good job of keeping focused and staying with it. We had some good results but let a few go at the end there,” ASU coach Melissa Luellen said, “Overall it was a wonderful start to the tournament.”
Despite finishing 14 strokes ahead of second place Oklahoma State the team dropped a couple of strokes at the end of their round.
Most notably Molinaro had her only bogey on the final hole of her round and freshman Noemi Jimenez finished her first round with a 1-over-par 73, despite four bogeys on her back nine.
Jimenez was making her debut for ASU.
“Noemi was nervous, excited all those kind of emotions playing in her first college tournament representing the Sun Devils,” Luellen said, “She was disappointed in how she finished because she knows she could have scored a lot better but her attitude was great and she learned that we just talk about the positive things around the team.”
While the team won three tournaments last spring, only one came in a tournament with more than four teams. After the first round, ASU sits in front of all fourteen teams, including Luellen’s alma mater Tulsa.
That isn’t the only thing tying Luellen to the tournament. The competition is named after her mother, who was at the tournament along with Luellen’s sister.
“It’s enjoyable to see so many familiar and friendly faces,” Luellen said, “I just drove the girls around my hometown and they want to win this tournament. They want to win it for my mom. They already told her, ‘we want to dedicate this to you. We want to win.’”
Dale McNamara coached her daughter Melissa at Tulsa for four years, a run that included Luellen’s 1988 individual National Championship. After McNamara left in 2000, Luellen took over for two years as head coach before signing on at ASU.
“It’s a very nice atmosphere. I saw another coach today that coached at the same time my mom did at Oklahoma State and those women worked really hard to pave the way for these younger girls and what’s happening in women’s college sports. We need to pay tribute to them and that’s what this tournament does,” Luellen said.
Also competing for the Sun Devils is Brittney McKee, the only American on the starting lineup. She finished her first round with a 5-over-par 77 which puts her tied for 31st. She also suffered from a bad end to her round as she made three bogeys on her last three holes.
The tournament is being hosted at The Patriot Golf Club in Owasso, Oklahoma which is a suburb of Tulsa. While most of ASU’s past tournaments involved Pacific coast competition, the Sun Devils are the only Pac-12 team in the tournament.
Reach the reporter at jjmckelv@asu.edu
Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
