TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
Two members of the LSU women’s golf team teed off Tuesday in one of America’s most famous amateur events, the 126th United States Women’s Amateur at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee, near Chattanooga.
Ryleigh Knaub, who had a very good freshman season at LSU in 2025-26, and incoming freshman Raegan Denton were competing in the first of two stroke play rounds on Tuesday that will determine the top 64 players who will advance to match play, beginning on Thursday.
A total of 1,422 entries were accepted for the event and after invitees and qualifying events, the field is set at 156 competitors that will tackle the par-72, 6,539-yard course designed by the legendary Pete Dye that opened in 1983.
Knaub had three top 10s for the Tigers as a freshman in helping the team make its sixth consecutive NCAA championship appearance in 2026. She finished fourth in the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate with three rounds of 1-under 70 and a third place tie finish in the ULM Invitational with three consecutive rounds of 3-under 69. She averaged 72.22 for 27 rounds this past year.
Denton has traveled through most of the United States and Canada this summer playing in some of the top amateur events in preparation for the women’s amateur. That included a victory in the Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur Championship last month. She also had top 10 finishes in the Western Amateur, the North South and the Women’s Southern Georgia Amateur. In April she finished fourth in her first appearance in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. She enters the U.S. Women’s Amateur ranked 47th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
LSU players have had success in the Women’s Amateur with Shreveport’s Meredith Duncan capturing the Robert Cox Trophy in a tense win on the first extra hole in the 2001 event in Wichita, Kansas. Austin Ernst was a semifinalist in the 2011 Women’s Amateur and most recently, Latanna Stone, advanced all the way to the final match in 2023.
Television coverage of the event begins on Thursday with coverage of the round of 64-matches on the Golf Channel at 10 a.m. central. The 36-hole championship match is Sunday.
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