University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sunday, March 28
Lanata GC / Lantana, Texas
54 holes

University of Oklahoma

vs

The Bruzzy

Mikhaela Fortuna lead

Fortuna Leads OU to Fourth-Place Finish

March 29, 2021 | Women's Golf

ARGYLE, Texas – Powered by Mikhaela Fortuna's 10th-career top-20 finish, the Oklahoma women's golf team notched its sixth top-five team finish in its last seven tournaments, finishing fourth at The Bruzzy Challenge to close out the stroke-play portion of the regular season.Ā 

The Sooners (+6, 870) fought windy conditions to card a 295 (+7) on Monday andĀ hold off No. 17 Houston toĀ grab fourth place at the 15-team tournament. Veronique Drouin-Luttrell's team continued to sink pars at the par-72, 6,421-yard Lantana Golf Club to finish ahead of a trio of teams that entered the week ranked higher than Oklahoma in the latest Golfstat rankings.

"It was a tough day for us out there," Drouin-Luttrell said. "We played stressed out, and it hurt us both days. It's nice to finish inside the top five, but we're capable of so much more. We'll get back to Norman and work on some things as we prepare for the match-play event up in Stillwater in a couple of weeks."

Fortuna (E, T13) led the Sooners and moved up to T4 after a string of birdies on Monday but closed with a 3-over on the back nine to drop out of the top 10 and finish in a tie for 13th. The junior led the field with 41 pars and paced OU in par-three scoring (3.00) to lead the team for the fifth time in 18 career events.Ā 

Libby Winans (+3, T22) carded a 74 (+2) on Monday to finish tied for 22nd with teammate Maria Fernanda Martinez. The junior opened her day with a birdie but tallied five bogeys over her next nine holes before finishing with a pair of birdies on the back nine to secure her fourth top-25 finish of the 2020-21 season, second-most on the team behind Hannah Screen.

Martinez shot the lowest final two rounds on the team, carding a 71 in Sunday's second round and a 72 on Monday to finish T22, the third-best finish of the sophomore's career. After opening her tournament with five birdies en route to a 76 (+4), she bounced back, sinking 24 pars over her final 36 holes to move up 12 spots on Monday's leaderboard. Her strong close at The Bruzzy marks the second time she's finished a tournament with two rounds of par-or-better as a Sooner, as her two birdies over her last three holes helped hold off No. 17 Houston.Ā 

Delivering a T29 performance after a 3-over 75 in the final round, Hannah Screen (+4, T29) collected a team-high 15 pars on Monday but could not find a birdie, marking just the second time she's gone without a birdie in a round as a Sooner. Her 38 pars across 54 holes were tied for the fifth-most in the field, as her 2020-21 scoring average of 71.77 and average vs. par of 0.22 are both bests at OU this season.Ā 

Kaitlin Milligan (+7, T40) carded a 76 (+4) on Monday afternoon but closed with three birdies on the back nine after starting on No. 3 earlier in the day. The senior will now turn her attention to the Augusta National Women's Amateur, which features the top amateur women's golfers in the world and tees off on Wednesday in Augusta, Ga. Milligan was extended the invitation after previously accepting an invite to the 2020 ANWA, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She follows former SoonerĀ Julienne Soo, who competed at the inaugural ANWA in 2019. Oklahoma joins Texas as the only Big 12 school to have a student-athlete appear in both tournaments.

Monday's round marked the end of Oklahoma's stroke-play in the 2020-21 regular season, as the Sooners have one final regular-season event in April, but the event is a match-play event in Stillwater, Okla. The Sooners finish stroke play with a scoring average of 289.47, the second-lowest in program history. Drouin-Luttrell's teams have rewritten the record book in Norman, tallying the top 11 scoring averages in program history, carding sub-300 averages every season since Drouin-Luttrell arrived in 2009.Ā 

The Sooners will now focus on a match-play event at Stillwater Country Club in April to close the regular season before traveling to Houston for the Big 12 Championship on April 18-20.

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