After short break, am Constantino wins Georgia Women's Open

Harmie Constantino hasn’t teed it up in competition since the NCAA East Lansing Regional, when her Georgia team bowed out of the postseason. Rust didn’t seem to be an issue for the incoming sophomore. In her first start back, Constantino won the Georgia Women’s Open – a field of predominantly professional players.

Constantino began the day in second place, three strokes behind first-round leader Emma Jandel. Following her lone bogey of the day at No. 4, Constantino played the final 12 holes in 7 under. She turned at 1 under on the day with birdies coming at Nos. 7 and 9. Following another birdie at No. 10, Constantino strung together four-consecutive birdies from Nos. 12-16 to take control. She wrapped up her loop with a birdie at No. 18 for good measure.

Constantino has spent the past month and a half in the Philippines. Though she wasn’t competing, she was grinding on all parts of her game to get better. She just didn’t expect to see results so quickly.

“It was great,” Constantino said. “It’s literally all I’ve been working on. Back when I was at home, I was working on my game so much. I really didn’t expect to have a good tournament. I just wanted to compete and see where I was and go from there. All I wanted to do was stay steady, try to make birdies and really stay away from bogeys. I didn’t expect to play so great. It’s just awesome.”

Classmate Jenny Bae followed a 3-under 69 on Monday with a 4-under 68 in the final round. She tied for third with Jandel.

“I’m really excited for our season because we have so many great players and we’re hungry,” Constantino said. “I’m excited about who we have coming back and who we have joining the team. You can tell everyone is hungry to win and that motivates me to play even better. I’m excited to see what happens when school starts and we start playing tournaments.”

Quotes and information from University of Georgia Athletics used in this report