OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City University tests itself on the national championship course in the Sooner Athletic Conference women's golf championships Friday and Saturday at Lincoln Park Golf Course.
The SAC Championships tee off 8 a.m. Friday with 18 holes followed by the final round 10 a.m. Saturday. Keep up with the tournament via live results.
Oklahoma City owns 15 league titles. Texas Wesleyan halted the Stars' streak of consecutive SAC crowns at six by taking last year's conference
championship. The Lady Rams won by a seven-stroke margin led by Alex Schies, who won her second SAC individual crown in a row.
Lincoln Park Golf Course will be set up as a par-72, 6,025-yard course for the tournament. The NAIA Championships will come to Lincoln Park on May 14-17 for the first of a two-year run as the national tournament site.
The teams vying for the title will be 11th-rated Texas Wesleyan, 17th-ranked OCU, Central Christian (Kan.), Houston-Victoria, Panhandle State, Southwestern Christian, St. Thomas (Texas), University of the Southwest (N.M.), Wayland Baptist (Texas) plus Mid-America Christian has entered individuals in the tournament.
OCU picked up the win in the Susie Maxwell Berning Classic by 16 shots over Texas Wesleyan on April 8-9 at Lincoln Park Golf Course. The Stars take to Lincoln Park's West Course for the fourth time this season in the conference tournament.
Melissa Eldredge, a junior from Eufaula, Okla., took runner-up as four OCU golfers made the top 10 in the Susie Maxwell Berning Classic. Natalie Gough (fourth), Lauren Behnken (tied for seventh) and Lauryn Pritchard (tied for 10th) were the Stars' other top-10 finishers.
Eldredge boasts of a team-best 76.62 scoring average and 44 birdies in 21 rounds. Eldredge and Gough have become SAC golfer of the week honorees. Gough, a freshman from Bixby, Okla., has produced a 76.90 stroke average this season.
In last year's SAC Championships, Eldredge and Arianna Medina collected all-tournament honors.
The SAC Championships came back to Lincoln Park Golf Course in 2018 for the first time since 2012. Lincoln Park hosts the SAC Championships and the NAIA Championships in 2020. Lincoln Park rates as one of Oklahoma's finest public golf courses. Oklahoma City's oldest public golf course unveiled its new state-of-the-art $9.25 million club house in spring 2015. The course was designed by Art Jackson and built in 1922. It features bent grass on the greens and Bermuda grass on the fairways.
The Stars have captured national championships in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2017.