Montana State University
GCU Invitational
Golf Heads to Phoenix for GCU Invitational
2/26/2024 12:50:00 PM | Women's Golf
Familiarity with the course after last year’s successful stay in Arizona bodes well for the Bobcats in 54-hole tournament beginning Tuesday morning and continuing through Wednesday
PHOENIX -- Montana State golf heads south this week, traveling to the Valley of the Sun to participate in the GCU Invitational hosted by Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona.
The two-day stroke play tournament gets underway Tuesday morning with 36 holes, wrapping up with a final 18-hole round on Wednesday.
The tournament will feature a shotgun start both days at 8 a.m. PT/9 a.m. MT from GCU Golf Course.
The Bobcats will roll out a lineup of Scarlet Weidig, Eva Heinz, Maddie Montoya, Lauren Greeny, and Hannah Boraas, with Belle Brezovski competing as an individual.
Montana State will clash with fellow Big Sky foes Idaho, Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona, and Eastern Washington. Other teams competing include Grand Canyon, Oral Roberts, Tarleton State, Southern Utah, Seattle U, Houston Christian, Seton Hall, Long Beach State, UC Riverside, North Dakota, Marshall, New Mexico State, UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, UTEP and North Dakota State.
The Bobcats are looking to build on last year's performance at this tournament, which featured some of their best golf in a season that ended with a runner-up finish at the Big Sky Championships. Led by Weidig tying for the lowest three-round score of the invitational with an 8-under 208 (69-71-68), Montana State carded its then-lowest round in program history with a 1-under 287, and for the tournament shot a then-program-low 882.
"Scarlet tied for first last year, so that's great," head coach Brittany Basye said. "Eva has played that golf course before, and the last time she played it, she won a tournament there. I like the golf course personally because it's kind of like an old country club course. Not much to it--flat, dogleg right, dogleg left. There's some reachable par-5's, but then there's some tricky par-4's with some water, with some layup holes. A lot of thinking is going to have to go on, and a lot of the focus is going to be hitting fairways and hitting chip shots, because the greens are elevated so there can be some roll-offs. According to how the grass is this time of the year you could have some funky lies."
After a record-breaking fall, Montana State opened up their spring slate of action two weeks ago at the Mountain Classic Match Play tournament in Palm Desert, California. The Bobcats narrowly lost to tournament champion Northern Arizona in the quarterfinals before splitting their last two matches with Seattle U and Portland State to place seventh.
"It's still early," Basye said. "Last week was good--I saw some good shots, but I also saw some rusty shots, which is to be expected. We've still got some of that rust in the wheelhouse. Getting a day to practice out there and dust some of the cobwebs off, and then we go out and play our practice round. We're getting back into our 36-hole mode with that first day, so that's going to be something that we really focus on as well."
The par-72 course will include a day one yardage of 6,155 followed by a day two yardage of 6,126.
"I'm looking for some good stuff," Basye said. "Hannah's first time seeing the golf course, Belle's first time seeing the golf course, but the other ones have all seen it. That's a big deal and that's a great thing. We're going to be going for some low numbers, but some consistent numbers."
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