Trio of Deacs Named to First Spring ANNIKA Award Watch List

COLUMBUS, Ga. – Three Wake Forest women’s golfers, Carolina Chacarra, Rachel Kuehn and Lauren Walsh, have all been named to the first Spring Watch List for the ANNIKA Award presented by Stifel.
 
The award is given annually at the conclusion of the NCAA Championships to the top female collegiate golfer.
 
Chacarra has been in the lineup for seven of the Deacs’ eight events this year and has finished inside the top 20 in six of them. Her best came at the Jackson T. Stephens cup where she finished T3 with a five-under-par score of 211. Her best score of the season was a nine-under-par 204 at the Mercedes Benz Intercollegiate in September where she finished fourth. She shot an eight-under 208 at the UCF Challenge to start off the spring slate in February. She is third on the team with a stroke average of 71.48 over 21 rounds.
 
Kuehn leads the Demon Deacons with a stroke average of 70.46 over 24 rounds this spring. She won the individual title of stroke play in October at the Jackson T. Stephens Cup at Seminole Golf Club. Her best performance of the spring came at the UCF Challenge where she fired a 15-under-par score of 201 to finish in third place. She followed that up with a sixth-place finish at the Nexus Collegiate. The Asheville, North Carolina native has finished inside the top 21 in all eight events of the season so far.
 
Walsh was just named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Women’s Golfer of the Month Monday (March 6) after opening the spring season with two top-5 finishes at the UCF Challenge (T4) in Orlando and the Nexus Collegiate (2nd) in the Bahamas. She currently has a 71.08 scoring acreage over 24 rounds, second-best on the team.
 
Walsh fired a 204 (12-under-par) total at the UCF Challenge, which included five top-25 teams. She had three consecutive rounds in the 60s and turned in an unblemished scorecard in the final round that included four birdies and no bogeys. She posted back-to-back birdies on the final two holes to shoot 4-under on the day and 12-under for the event. She recorded 14 total birdies over the three-day event.
 
Her highest collegiate finish came at the Nexus Collegiate the following week, where she finished in second place with a one-under-par score of 215. The field included eight top-25 teams in the 10-team field and Walsh was one of just two players to finish the event under par. Both of Walsh’s top-five…