Tiger Rag News Services
The LSU women’s golf team will look to put things together starting here Friday when they tee off in the Southeastern Conference Women’s Golf Championship at the prestigious Pelican Golf Club.
The Tigers will be looking to make the top eight and match play after 54 holes of stroke play for the sixth consecutive year.
Where the real fun begins 🌴 pic.twitter.com/0zhWuJ7PO8
— LSU Women's Golf (@LSUWomensGolf) April 16, 2026
The tournament features 18 holes of play Friday through Sunday with the top eight going to match play with the championship to be decided on Tuesday.
The league, like other sports, is stacked in women’s golf with 14 of the 16 teams ranked in the top 35 in the NCAA Scoreboard by Clippd rankings.
In rankings order, Florida is No. 3, with Texas A&M four and Texas five. Arkansas is sixth and Auburn is the fifth team in the top 10 at No. 8. Vanderbilt is in at No. 14 with Mississippi State at 16, Tennessee at 16, Ole Miss No. 21 with South Carolina at No. 23. The other top 35 teams are Oklahoma at No. 27, Kentucky at 31, with LSU at 32. Missouri is No. 35. Georgia and Alabama round out the teams participating.
The Tigers had three top five finishes in the 2025-26 wraparound season with a third-place finish at the Golfweek Red Sky Classic last September, a fourth in the Puerto Rico Classic to open the spring season and a fifth in the Betsy Rawls Invitational in March.
LSU’s lineup will include two seniors – Elsa Svensson and Taylor Riley, sophomores Francesca Fiorellini and Rocio Tejedo; and, freshman Ryleigh Knaub.
Three Tiger players are in the top 100 in the present Scoreboard rankings with Svensson ranked 52nd in college golf, Fiorellini 66 and Knaub 70.
Knaub for 18 rounds averages a team best 71.89 for the season with Fiorellini and Svensson at 72.42. Riley averaged 73.07.
A year ago, it was Riley and Tejedo who tied for second in the individual competition which is decided after the 54-hole stroke play portion.
Sophomore Josefin Widal will serve as the alternate for the tournament for LSU.
The Pelican Golf Club, an exclusive club which was built in 1925 by famed course designer Donald Ross and by 2017 was a not so well-kept public course owned by the city. The Doyle Family bought the course and in 2019 reopened the course with a limited membership that restored many of the qualities of the Ross designs of the 1920s.
The course is in its third year as the host of the SEC Women’s Championship over its par 70, 6,292 yards. Pelican also hosts an LPGA Tour stop in the fall and in 2022 hosted the nationally-televised prime time “The Match” which featured Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.
The teams played a practice round over the course and LSU Head Coach Garrett Runion pronounced that the course is in its usual good shape.
“The course looks great,” said Runion, who coached the Tigers to their last SEC Championship in 2022. “The weather for this week looks good. Fortunately for us, it was very similar to how it was in Baton Rouge practice this week with our lineup. This week we have a good mix of two seniors, two first timers and two returnees as well. The vibe of the team is really high right now. They’ve known who is coming to the SEC Championship for a week now, so they’ve had a good week to practice as a team and push each other.
“The team is looking to kind of turn a page and start fresh for the postseason and it is a good week to start playing like we know we can play,” he said.
SEC GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS
Pelican Golf Club – Belleair, Florida.
LSU Tee Times (CDT)
8:10 a.m. – Ryleigh Knaub
8:20 a.m. – Rocio Tejedo
8:40 a.m. – Taylor Riley
8:50 a.m. – Elsa Svensson
9 a.m. – Francesca Fiorellini
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