HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS, FL -- The sun was beating down from above on the challenging El Campeón course at the Mission Inn Golf Resort. The course, as always, played very difficult, forcing players to navigate fast greens and tough pin positions. Big numbers are not as easily avoided at El Campeón, and that has shown with the higher-than-average scores from the field today. Senior
Catalin Yturralde represented her Williams team well at day one of the NCAA Division III Women's Golf Championships. She shot a 75, +2, and currently sits one-shot off the top finisher of the day so far. As the second wave of tee times continues to play, Yturralde will no doubt be amongst the players at the top of the leader board heading into tomorrow.
The highlight of Yturralde's round comes with her stellar eagle on the par-5 14th hole. Coming off of a chip-in par from the last hole, Yturralde drained a lengthy eagle put to give her some strong momentum at the end of her round. She paired that eagle with two birdies on the front nine.
Eph head coach
Tomas Adalsteinsson remarked, "Cat did a great job sticking to the game plan and avoiding big numbers. On some of the holes her short game was a bit off, but she made up for it by chipping in and making a couple of long putts. She stayed calm and focused, knowing there's a lot of golf left. Her chip in on 13, eagle on 14, followed by tap-in pars on 15 and 16, is probably the best stretch of holes I've seen Cat play. I look forward to seeing more of it in the coming days!"
Yturralde also added, "Today was definitely a solid start. I was able to hit some really good shots which was huge for my confidence going into these next few rounds. That being said there were definety some weaker points of my game that showed today, especially short-game wise. But, there is lots more golf to play more time to work out the kinks."
Follow along tomorrow with live scoring for day two of the NCAA DIII Women's Golf Championships on Golfstat. Live broadcast is also provided by GameKast, which can be found at this link:
https://www.gklive.tv/product/all-access-event-pass-for-2023-ncaa-division-iii-womens-golf-championships.
