No. 10 UVA Opens at ANNIKA Intercollegiate

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.  – The Virginia women’s golf opens its season Monday at the eighth annual ANNIKA Intercollegiate presented by 3m. The three-day event takes place at Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo, Minn. The Cavaliers enter the season-opener ranked No. 10 in the preseason Mizuno WGCA Coaches Poll.

The 12-team field for the ANNIKA Intercollegiate features 11 teams ranked in the top-20 of the preseason ranking: No. 17 Alabama, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 13 Auburn, No. 20 Duke, No. 14 Florida, No. 20 Michigan, Minnesota, No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 South Carolina, No. 16 Texas and No. 2 Wake Forest. The Gamecocks won last year’s tournament.

This will be UVA’s third appearance at the tournament. The Cavaliers placed 11th in both the 2017 and 2019 playing of the event.||

All three rounds of the tournament will start with a shotgun start at 8 a.m. CT.

Virginia sophomore golfer Amanda Sambach is one of 25 players named to the 2023 ANNIKA Award Watch List. The Annika Award is presented annually to the nation’s most outstanding female collegiate golfer.

An honorable mention All-American as a freshman, Sambach led UVA with a 72.85 stroke average last season. That was the lowest single-season average by a first-year in program history. She picked up all-ACC honors and placed 31st at the NCAA Championships and was third at the ACC Championships.

Sambach will be joined in the UVA lined by senior Celeste Valinho, sophomore Megan Propeck, graduate student Riley Smyth and junior Jennifer Cleary.

The tournament is named for former LPGA champion Annika Sorenstam, who won 89 professional events and 10 major titles during her 15 years as a professional.

Sorenstam enrolled at the University of Arizona in the fall of 1990 and won seven titles during her collegiate career. She was the first foreign-born player and first freshman to win the individual NCAA Championship. She also won the 1991 National Co-Player of the Year Award, was the 1992 Pac-10 Champion and was named to the 1991-1992 All-American team. In 1992, Annika was a runner-up for the National Player of the Year Award and finished second to Vicki Goetze at the United States Women’s Amateur Golf Championship.

Live scoring of the tournament is online at Golfstat.com.