Where Gators Women’s Golf Has Found Success

After an SEC Championship performance where the University of Florida women’s golf team didn’t make match play for the first time in two seasons, it’s easy to feel disappointed. Yet, despite the poor finish heading into regionals, the Gators have a lot to be proud of.

Much Improved

Ten tournaments in, the improvement from last year has been clear. Coming off a year where the Gators won only one tournament, had only eight individual under-par tournament finishes and had three golfers averaging over 75 strokes-per-round, the roster has shown a leap in production.

For starters, the Orange and Blue secured three tournament victories on the year, two coming in the month of October alone. Not only that, but they’ve also recorded three solo tournament victories, all coming from senior Maisie Filler. Filler secured the best individual finish for the Gator last year, finishing runner-up at the Gator invitational with a score of 133. Though, she took a huge leap in her fourth season as a Gator, being the only one to secure a solo victory. She finished atop the leaderboard at the Tar Heel Invitational, The Ally and The Moon Golf Invitational.

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The Gators have also had five additional under-par tournament scores compared to last year, sitting at 13. Last season, they only recorded 8. Florida had six total golfers combine for these 13 finishes compared to three from the previous year. Filler and freshman Ines Archer contributed eight of these finishes themselves.

Lastly, the roster’s strokes-per-round has shown great improvement. Lead by Filler’s team-low 71.3 average, no Gator has an average over 74. Filler, Archer and junior Taylor Roberts close out the top three in average for the team.

Freshman Standout

The Gators squad has had 18 individual top-10 finishes on the year, with Filler leading the way with five. Next is Archer with three. Archer has been a standout and an integral part of UF’s success. With a stroke-average of 72.6, a top finish of tied for second at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic and the best finish among Gators at the SEC Championship (T20), Archer has been a huge bright spot in her first year in Gainesville, and to no surprise. Coming in, Archer had a strong resume. In 2018, she was the U14 French Champion, won the 2021 Linxea Open and before attending the school, she was apart of the French National Team. In her first year with the team, she has been a huge factor in their improvement.

Despite the already prevalent improvements made from last season, the Gators still have golf to be played. They now await their regional selection on April 24, where they’ll find out where and who they’ll face off against in the regional tournament.

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