Season Preview: 2017-18 Michigan Women's Golf

» Michigan returns four of its five starters from a year ago -- seniors Emily White and Megan Kim, junior Elodie Van Dievoet and sophomore Alisa Snyder.
» The Wolverines added one freshman -- Ashley Kim -- to replace All-Big Ten performer Grace Choi. Kim is the younger sister of current senior Megan.
» Michigan has made back-to-back NCAA regional appearances and advanced to two straight NCAA Finals.
» The Wolverines will play a balanced regular-season schedule with four fall tournaments and four spring events before heading to the Big Ten Championships.

The 2017-18 University of Michigan women's golf team begins its fifth season under head coach Jan Dowling and is looking for its third straight NCAA Finals appearance. The Wolverines will open the season Sunday through Tuesday (Sept. 17-19) at the East & West Match Play Challenge at University Ridge in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jan Dowling and Emily White

Wolverine Bites

• Michigan has made back-to-back NCAA Regional appearances and advanced to the NCAA Finals the last two seasons. U-M had only one prior NCAA Finals appearance, in 2002, finishing 17th. The Wolverines tied for 18th in 2016 and followed with a tie for 16th in 2017.

• The 2016-17 squad averaged 298.00 as a team to record just the second season average less than 300 in program history. A year earlier, U-M set the program record with a 295.56 per round tally. The previous program best was 302.53.

• In just four seasons under Dowling, U-M has posted two top-five finishes at the Big Ten Championships -- 2015 (5th) and 2017 (5th). Prior to Dowling's arrival, U-M had recorded just eight total top-five finishes at the conference tournament. In fact, Dowling's squad just missed a third top-five in 2016 when it finished sixth.

• Elodie Van Dievoet had a remarkable 2017 postseason for the Wolverines. After winning the Big Ten individual title, her dramatic 18-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at the Columbus Regional helped send U-M to the NCAA Finals for a second straight season and give her a top-10 individual finish (t-9th). In the finals, she recorded the highest individual finish for a Wolverine, tying for fourth, while pacing U-M to its best finish at the championships, a tie for 16th.

• Van Dievoet became the ninth Wolverine to earn All-Big Ten first team honors and gave U-M back-to-back seasons of first team selections after former Wolverine Grace Choi (2014-17) earned the accolade in 2016. Throughout U-M's history, 13 total players have garnered All-Big Ten honors, with nine first-team accolades.

Elodie Van Dievoet

Breaking Down the Roster

• Van Dievoet looks to follow up her breakout sophomore season during which she became U-M's first medalist at the Big Ten Championships (April 21-23) as well as the program's first WGCA All-American. She finished as the top Wolverine in nine of the 12 events, including seven of the last eight tournaments. In fact, she posted seven top-10 finishes, including five of the final seven events as well as all three postseason tournaments. She broke U-M's single-season scoring record with her 73.09 per round mark and led U-M with 12 sub-par rounds.

• With a combined 61 starts together, Megan Kim and Emily White have helped the Wolverines to back-to-back regional and NCAA Finals appearances. Kim was a steady force last season, starting all 12 events while carding a 76.09 per round average with three top-20 finishes. White also started all 12 events while averaging 76.45 per round. She produced two top-10 finishes, leading U-M by tying for sixth at the Trinity Forest Invitational and tying for third at the Hurricane Invitational after posting a season-best 213 (-3).

• After adjusting to the collegiate level early in her freshman season, Alisa Snyder became a staple of U-M's lineup and started the final eight events. She closed her first campaign with a 77.30 per round average, and her career-best 70 (-2) in the final round of the Big Ten Championships was instrumental in U-M posting a top-five finish.

• Senior Kathy Lim has started 22 of her 25 career events and will look at add depth to the Wolverines lineup.

Emily White

2017-18 Schedule

• Michigan will open at the East & West Match Play Challenge -- the yearly three-day event that rotates hosting duties between U-M and Wisconsin. This season, the Badgers host the Challenge at University Ridge, Sept. 17-19, in what will be an early preview of one of the four NCAA regional sites. In a format similar to the NCAA Finals, the eight-team field will play 36 holes of stroke play to determine seeding for two days of match play.

• The Wolverines will ramp up the fall playing in three prestigious events -- Golfweek's Conference Challenge, Sept. 25-27; North Carolina's Ruth Chris Invitational, Oct. 13-15; and UNC Wilmington's Landfall Tradition, Oct. 27-29. All three events give the opportunity for the Wolverines to compete against several of the nation's top programs.

• For the 11th straight spring opener, U-M will travel to Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, for Purdue's Lady Puerto Rico Classic at Rio Mar Country Club's River Course.

• After nearly three weeks of training and closing a spring break training trip, the Maize and Blue will open March in San Francisco's Meadow Club Women's Intercollegiate, March 5-6, for a second straight season. A few weeks later, the Wolverines will compete in Auburn's Evan Derby Experience, March 18-20. The spring closes with U-M's third straight appearance in co-host Wake Forest and UNC Greensboro's Bryan National Collegiate, April 6-8, at the famed Bryan Park Golf Course.

• The postseason will begin with the Big Ten Championships (April 20-22), to be held at the TPC River Bend for a second straight year. A few weeks later, NCAA Regionals begin, May 7-9, with four sites -- Stanford, California; Austin, Texas; Madison, Wisconsin; and Tallahassee, Florida.

• The 2018 NCAA Finals will be held at Karsten Creek Club in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Hosted by Oklahoma State and the NCAA, the qualifying teams will play 54 holes of stroke play before the first team cut. Following a final 18 holes to determine the individual champion, the top eight teams will advance to match play to compete for the national title.