TCU women earn a strong 4th-place finish at the ICON after a wild last round. It was a birdiefest early, with the top eight teams all under par at one point. It looked like the Frogs would be in a three-team race for 3rd with Houston and Oklahoma State, but Northwestern (-9 through 4 holes) quickly made it a four-team battle.
TCU was -8 for the day at one point, which would have been a single-round record had it held, but the wind came up and so did the scores.
In the end, the Frogs finished even on the day, -3 for the tournament. No top-10 finishers, but four players in the top 30. Last week they placed well on a difficult course; this week they placed well on a course set up for scoring. Among the teams they beat by at least six shots: Houston, Tech, UT, SMU and A&M.
It was a sneaky strong field, as perennial contender Texas discovered, finishing 10th. TCU bested UT all three days. Horns were missing Kaitlin Papp, but she would not have been enough to make up half of their 34-stroke deficit to the winning team.
The team from Waco edged LSU for the win, although Oklahoma State would have won had it not left the tournament winner on the bench to compete as an individual. In a major I'll-show-you-coach statement, Okie Light's Rina Tatematsu shot -14 to win by three.
The rankings are still wonky since so many schools didn't play in the fall--but TCU looks like a legit top-25 team. Next up for the women is the Longbow Invitational in Scottsdale, March 12-14.