Sophomore Bentley Cotton led the Longhorns to a fifth-place finish to open the team’s spring season at the Lamkin Invitational with an individual score of 219, tying for a sixth-place finish.

No. 11 Texas women’s golf traveled to San Diego, California to compete in the Lamkin Invitational for the first tournament of the spring season following a seventh-place finish at The Landfall Tradition in October.

The tournament featured several top-ranked teams, including No. 1 Stanford and No. 4 Oregon. In a tournament of 14 teams, the Longhorns went into the tournament as the third seed. The tournament only featured one other Big 12 team — unranked Kansas. The Lamkin Invitational was played at The Farms Golf Club, featuring a total par of 72 and 6,329 yards of course.

In round one of play, junior Sophie Guo recorded a score of 69 to be tied for third place. In round two, Guo had a total score of 82, which pushed her back into 34th place with a total score of 151 after two rounds of play. 

Cotton led the Longhorns throughout two rounds of play on day one of the tournament. Cotton finished round one with a score of 72, complete with five birdies, three bogeys and one double bogey. In round two, Cotton scored a 70, finishing the front nine holes with back-to-back birdies. Cotton’s strong second round of play moved her into third place after one day of play. 

Cotton’s finish topped her collegiate career record, which was formerly a tie for 14th place at the Windy City Collegiate Classic in October 2021, where she finished with a score of 224. The Austin product finished tied for sixth with four others, including her former Westlake High School teammate Sadie Englemann, who now plays for Stanford.

As a team, the Longhorns scored 297 in round one and 289 in round two for a total score of 586, placing eighth after day one of play. 

On the second day of play, senior Sara Kouskova jumped eight places from 34th to 26th place with a score of 75. During the fall season, Kouskova led the Longhorns with a second place individual finish at the Stanford Intercollegiate with a score of 201, finishing behind Stanford’s Rose Zhang. 

The Longhorns’ next tournament, the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, begins Feb. 28 in Hilton Head, South Carolina.