Griz travel to Arizona to tee it back up

The Montana women's golf team will head south again this week for the first of four straight tournaments in Arizona.

The Grizzlies will compete Saturday and Sunday at the 17-team, 54-hole Red Rocks Invitational, hosted by Northern Arizona at Oakcreek Country Club in Sedona.

Teams will play 36 holes on Saturday, 18 on Sunday.

Montana will compete with the same five golfers it has used at its first two tournaments of the spring season, first at the Bowling Green Intercollegiate and last week at the Lady Thunderbird Invitational.

Representing the Grizzlies will be Tricia Joyce, Raina Ports, Hannah Ports, Kendall Hayward and Elle Higgins.

Higgins led Montana at the Bowling Green Intercollegiate, shooting rounds of 70, 79 and 76 to tie for 10th in the 78-player field.

Hannah Ports led the Grizzlies for the first time in her career at the Lady Thunderbird Invitational, shooting rounds of 82, 74 and 76 to tie for 32nd.

Montana has competed at the Red Rocks Invitational every year since 2018.

"The course is a little more demanding off the tee than the last couple of courses we've played," said first-year coach Jimmy Mee.

"The greens are a little bit tricky because it has a valley effect. There is a big rock formation you can see from pretty much everywhere and every putt breaks away from that rock formation."

Montana opened Red Rocks in 2019 with a round of 292, the fourth-lowest score in program history, on its way to a three-round total of 900, the fourth-best tournament score in program history.

Two years ago, Montana shot rounds of 309, 306 and 302. "We've played well there in the past," said Mee. "The biggest thing is to continue to get comfortable competing."

Montana shot rounds of 310, 321 and 321 at the Bowling Green Intercollegiate last month, then went 323, 309, 309 last week in St. George, Utah.

"It's going to be 100 yards and in for us. We drive it well enough and hit our second shots well enough. It's going to boil down to, can we score from 100 yards and in," said Mee.

"We have way too many three-putts. If we can eliminate those, we'll be in the 290s or pushing the 290s every time we play. We're making 10 to 15 three-putts a round right now."

At last week's Lady Thunderbird Invitational, Montana carded only 16 birdies, the lowest total in the 13-team field.

"Our next big step is just making more birdies, which is going to come down to our wedges being better," said Mee.

"At St. George, it was either missing a decent look from six or seven feet or having a scoring club in our hands and hitting it to 30 feet.

"If we can clean up with our scoring clubs and give ourselves a few more from 15 feet and in and clean up our three-putts, we'll be in great shape."

Montana's next trip to Arizona, in early April, will include two tournaments, the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic and the Bobcat Desert Classic.

The Grizzlies will play at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club April 4-5, then remain in Arizona and play at the Golf Club of Estrella April 8-10.

Montana will have six players on that trip, which will be the last before the Grizzlies compete at the Big Sky Conference Championship April 15-17 at Wigwam Golf Club in Litchfield Park, Ariz.

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Players Mentioned

Kendall Hayward

Elle Higgins

Tricia Joyce

Hannah Ports

Raina Ports

University of Montana Athletics