Despite career-worst day from Ingrid Lindblad, LSU climbs into position at NCAAs

Ingrid Lindblad had something happen Saturday that had never occurred before in her LSU career.

Her score didn’t count.

Lindblad, a fifth-year senior and the world’s top-ranked amateur, triple-bogeyed Omni La Costa’s par-5 10th hole to begin her second round of the NCAA Championship, her 48th event as a Tiger, and then added six bogeys – and no bogeys – to finish with a 9-over 81. The score was four shots higher than Lindblad’s previous career-worst mark and nine shots higher than her worst round this season (72), and through two rounds, Lindblad sits outside the top 120 on the individual leaderboard.

To put things in perspective, Lindblad, who owns 15 career wins at LSU, hasn’t just finished in the top 5 in each of her nine starts this season; she has placed outside the top 10 in just five of 47 career college tournaments – and two of those five non-top-10s were T-11 showings. Lindblad has never finished worse than T-44 (2021 NCAA Championship) in a college start.

According to LSU head coach Garrett Runion, nothing was physically wrong with Lindblad. She carded 73 in her opening round, making just three bogeys. Runion added that with some pressure off, he expected a big closing 36 holes from his star player after Saturday’s glitch.

Luckily for the Tigers, Lindblad’s teammates picked her up. Aine Donegan fired a bogey-free, 5-under 67 and Carla Tejedo added a 71 as LSU shot 2 under as a team, moved to 1 under overall and climbed nine spots to T-5 on the leaderboard.

After 72 holes, the top eight teams will qualify for match play. Texas A&M, behind individual leader Adela Cernousek, is five strokes clear of the field at 11 under. Stanford (6 under), Clemson (3 under), UCLA (4 under), Auburn (T-5) and Oregon (7 under) would join LSU in current position to advance to the match-play stage. Arkansas and Northwestern are tied for eighth at 2 over, a shot better than Duke.

Further down the leaderboard, reigning national champion Wake Forest is T-14 at 11 over while South Carolina, a No. 1 regional seed that survived a scare a week ago to advance to nationals, is solo 22nd at 17 over.