Women's golf tied with Arkansas-Little Rock at second under Mississippi

By Evan Glantz

Published Oct. 3, 2008

For years, Columbia resident Johnie Imes supported the Missouri women's golf team, whether it was through fundraisers or just by cheering them on. And now her legacy will live on forever in the form of her very own tournament, the Johnie Imes Invitational.

"I am so grateful and honored," Imes said. "It's hard to express how you feel about that. I love all the girls and I like watching all of them play. They play incredible golf out there and it's fun to watch."

After winning the tournament last year, the team had high expectations for another championship. But in a field of 18 teams, Missouri tied the University of Arkansas-Little Rock for second place, two strokes behind University of Mississippi. A tiebreaker based on the team's fifth player knocked the Tigers down to third place behind Arkansas-Little Rock.

"We obviously expected to win this one," coach Mindy Bullard said. "We were ranked up there. University of Arkansas-Little Rock was pretty closely ranked to us and they may have even been ranked ahead of us nationally."

While the Tigers may not have seen the results they expected, there was some good that came of the match. Junior Julia Potter finished first in the entire field by shooting a 209 in the three rounds, which is a school, course and tournament record. Her score was seven strokes under par even with a double bogey on hole 15.

"I wanted to come out myself and repeat as champion," Potter said. "But I was really trying to break that school record for the tournament. I had it in my mind all day, and even yesterday after my eagle on 11 to go three under. I thought to myself, 'If I par out from here, I've broken the school record.' I think from there on out I definitely had it set in my mind."

Even with Potter pacing them, the Tigers still fell short of their goal. Throughout the third round, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas-Little Rock were all locked in a back-and-forth battle for first place. The Tigers started the day in third place but roared into a tie for first with the Rebels. But Missouri could not secure the victory.

"There is always the need to finish strong," Bullard said. "There were a few points in the tournament at the end when we were actually tied with Ole Miss and Little Rock and it's just a matter of finishing strong and we just didn't quite do that this tournament."

Even with the disappointing finish, the team was still much better than the majority of the competition. The Tigers were only two strokes off of first place, yet were ahead of Mississippi State University, the fourth place team, by nine strokes.

"In general everybody has to work on just controlling their bad shots," Potter said. "But I think that if we learn to control our bad shots, we'll be a much better team. But the girls tried, I can't be any more proud of them."