Will Gordon, Robynn Ree win East Lake Cup Medalist Titles
10/30/2017 | by AmateurGolf.com Staff
see also: View results for East Lake Cup, East Lake Golf Club
Vanderbilt (men's) and Stanford (women's) are the top-seeds for match play beginning Tuesday
ATLANTA, GA (October 30, 2017) - Day one of the East Lake Cup is in the books with Will Gordon of Vanderbilt and Robynn Ree of USC earning medalist honors.
The East Lake Cup is three-days of play with the first day featuring 18-holes of stroke play to determine the medalist winners and the seedings for match play. At the East Lake Golf Club the match play portion of the event begins Tuesday with the semifinals before concluding with the title matches on Wednesday. The field is comprised of the semifinalist from both the 2017 men's and women's NCAA Tournament.
Will Gordon, a junior, shot a level-par 72 on a brisk sun splashed but difficult day to finish one shot in front of four others at 1-over. Gordon, who finished tied for second in the East Lake Cup a year ago, cruised along on his opening nine with three birdies and no bogeys to turn in 3-under 33. However, on the back nine it was all about hanging on as Gordon bogeyed Nos. 10 and 11 while also double-bogeying the 17th. Gordon was able to find what ended up being the winning birdie on the 14th.
Theo Humphrey (Vanderbilt), John Augenstein (Vanderbilt), Grant Hirschman (Oklahoma) and Nick Hardy (Illinois) shared second at 1-over while six others shared sixth at 2-over on what was a tightly packed leaderboard.
With three players in the top-two of the standings Vanderbilt, a final four team last season, earned the top-seed and they will face national runner-up from a year ago four-seed Oregon in the semifinals. The other semifinal match will feature defending national champion two-seed Oklahoma and three-seed Illinois, a semifinalist a year ago.
Illinois are the two-time defending champions of the event only in its third year.
In the women's medalist race Robynn Ree took the title with a 2-under 70 to win by one shot over Andrea Lee (Stanford), Olivia Mehaffey (Arizona State), Janet Mao (Northwestern) and Shannon Aubert (Stanford) all of whom finished 1-under.
Ree, a junior and two-time All-American, won her first title of the year with a four birdie, two bogey round. During her stroll on Monday Ree did all of her work on the front side with birdies on Nos. 1, 5, 6 and 8 while bogeying Nos. 2 and 4. The victory was the third of Rees' career.
Despite the stellar play of Ree USC, a semifinalist last year, finished second in the team standings and will face Northwestern in the semifinals. The matchup will be a rematch of last years final four.
In the second semifinal match it will be top-seed Stanford and four-seed Arizona State. When these teams last saw each other it was Arizona State beating out Stanford for the 2017 national title.
About the East Lake Cup
Started in 2015 and hosted by the historic East Lake Golf Club Atlanta, this collegiate, three-day match play competition features the top-performing teams from the previous year's NCAA Men’s Golf Championships. There is an individual award for the l...
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