NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It all comes down to this. Every drive, every chip, every putt of the fall and spring seasons for Vanderbilt women’s golf has been preparation for this week’s ultimate test: the SEC Championships.
Beginning with Wednesday’s opening round, the Commodores will compete with a field of familiar foes in an attempt to capture their first SEC title since 2014.
“This is what all the morning hours in the gym and long days on the golf course are all about. We talk all year about peaking in April and May,” said head coach Greg Allen. “So it’s go time and we couldn’t be more ready.”
For the 10th year in a row, the tournament will be hosted at the Legacy Course at Greystone Golf Club in Birmingham, Alabama. Known for its challenging greens and tempting hole design, this Rees Jones design will test the limits of the mental and physical toughness of all players.
“Although we’re familiar with the Legacy Course at Greystone, it’s going to play completely different this year,” said Allen. “They put in new greens after last year’s SEC Championships so they are very firm. We need to be smart and remain patient the whole week.”
Last year, Vanderbilt finished stroke play at 17-over par, securing seventh place and a spot in match play for the fourth straight year. However, the Dores were again unable to escape the quarterfinals, this time falling to eventual champions LSU.
“This may be the deepest the SEC has been in years so it’s going to be a battle to make match play,” said Allen. “I’m confident that our girls are up for the fight and will do everything in their power to make sure we have a Saturday tee time.”
Tournament Breakdown
Since 2018, the SEC Championships has followed a format of three weekday rounds of stroke play (Wednesday-Friday) with the top eight teams advancing to the weekend match play format (Saturday-Sunday). Therefore, the Dores must weather this course not once, not even three times, but a total of six times in five days in the hopes of hoisting the hardware.
Vanderbilt has entered match play every time in the past four years, being seeded fourth (2019), fifth (2021) and seventh twice (2018, 2022). SEC champions in the match-play era range from No. 2 seeds (LSU 2022) all the way to eighth seeds (Ole Miss 2019). What matters most is reaching the weekend.
SEC Forecast
This tournament is not only the pinnacle of pressure for this season but also the crest of competition for women’s golf as the SEC sports more ranked teams than any other conference. Eight of fourteen schools competing this week are among the Golfstat.com top 25: LSU (3), South Carolina (4), Mississippi State (5), Auburn (10), Texas A&M (13), Ole Miss (14), Vanderbilt (19), and Florida (20).
A total of 16 SEC golfers are currently ranked in GolfStat.com’s individual top 50. Georgia senior Jenny Bae, who stands third, is the highest-ranked SEC golfer in the country. Celina Sattelkau leads the Commodores, entering the tournament ranked 26th in the nation. Freshman Lynn Lim—who is 51st— is just on the outside the top 50.
In 2022, all but five SEC schools—Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Ole Miss, and Missouri— would end up advancing deeper into the postseason after earning NCAA regional bids. Vanderbilt was the sole host school, and the Dores prevailed at Franklin’s Vanderbilt Legends Club to make it to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2019.
Past Performance
Vanderbilt has won the SEC Championships twice, in 2004 and 2014.
Three Dores have taken home the individual title at the SEC Championships. The last was Simin Feng’s win at the Legacy Course in 2014, a clean sweep for the black and gold that year.
The Commodores have reached the weekend match play every year since the format’s inception in 2018, yet they have never made it out to the semifinals.
The last two quarterfinal losses have been to eventual champions Auburn (2021) and LSU (2022).
The Lineup
Vanderbilt will send its two seniors— Celina Sattelkau and Tess Davenport— to lead the team. Virginie Ding, the lone junior, will join freshmen Lynn Lim and Tillie Claggett to round out this hardware-eyeing lineup.
Sattelkau, a 2021 Golfweek third-team All-America and first-team All-SEC selection, leads the Commodores with a 71.1 stroke average and the most top-10 finishes—five—on the team this year.
Lim and Claggett are the Nos. 2 and 3 this week for the Commodores. Both have been named SEC Freshman of the Week—Lim on March 29 and Claggett on March 8—and each have finished in the top 10 at multiple tournaments this year. In Vanderbilt’s last time out, Lim was the lone Dore inside the top 10 when she tied for eighth place in her first competitive tournament in over a month.
Ding has been a consistent performer for the Commodores all year with two top-five finishes to her name. One of only four student-athletes to compete in all eight tournaments, she enters the postseason with a 72.6 stroke average.
Rounding out the lineup in the five spot will be Davenport, who in six competitions this year has averaged 75.2 strokes per round.
