The Emory University women's golf team will tee off for the first time in history when it begins the fall portion of its 2019-20 schedule on Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 14-15) at the NCAA D-III Preview. The 54-hole event will be played on the 5,846-yard, par-72 PGA National Resort - Palmer Course in in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. 36 holes will be played on Saturday followed by the final 18 on Sunday. The NCAA D-III Women's Golf Championships will also be played at the PGA National Resort and on the Palmer Course, May 12-15, in the spring.
The field will be made up of 14 teams, nine of which are ranked in the Top 25 in the Women's Golf Coach Association D-III Preseason Poll. The Eagles are in the Others Receiving Votes category with 20 points.
Among the top-10 ranked squads taking part in the Preview include No. 3 Methodist University, No. 9 Washington University and No. 10 Carnegie Mellon. Washington and Lee (#15), Berry College (#16), Oglethorpe (#17), Christopher Newport (#18) Huntingdon (#20) and Sewanee (#24) are the other teams representing the top 25 at the tournament.
At the helm for the Eagles is Katie Futcher, who was appointed as Emory's Head Women's Golf Coach in July of 2018. Fulcher is a 2003 graduate of Penn State University, where she was a two-time All-Big Ten honoree before going on to compete in more than 25 major championships and 120 events over nine years on the LPGA Tour. Futcher returned to her alma mater for one year to work as a volunteer coach and then spent the 2017-2018 season as an assistant at James Madison University until she was chosen to be the Interim Head Coach of the program, a position she held until June of 2018.
Assisting Fulcher will be former Big Ten Freshman of the Year Christel Boeljon. Boeljon captured the award while attending Purdue University in 2006, just one season before she finished as the NCAA Division-I Women's Golf National Championship runner-up in 2007. Like Fulcher, Boeljon has experience competing on the LPGA Tour and has 5 international wins to her name that she claimed on the Ladies European Tour.
The initial women's roster is comprised of seven highly-regarded freshman who have garnered enough national respect to allow the Eagles to receive numerous votes in the WGCA Preseason Poll.
Alice Acosta (Suwanee, GA), was born in Beijing, China, but played four years of golf at nearby North Gwinnett High School where she was a member of the 2018 Georgia Regional and 7A State Championship team. Last season, as a senior, Acosta shot an average of 79 and won the 2018 TPC Sugarloaf Junior Open after carding a pair of 75s.
Shriya Agarwal (Singapore), competed for three years at the United World College of South East Asia-Dover and averaged 79.2 strokes a round in her final season. In three consecutive years, Shriya recorded top-five finishes at the SEASAC International Golf Tournament.
Ksheera Jalakam (Frisco, TX) was named her team's MVP in each of the three years that she competed at Heritage High School where she is the record holder for top all-time score in a 36- hole event. Ksheera averaged 78 strokes per round in her senior year and was a medalist at the 2018 Wellvia Bagpipe Open. She was also a two-time first-team all district golfer.
Jessie Ji (Orlando, FL) won the 2017 AJGA Junior Qualifier and played in international competitions in southeast Asia. Jessie played golf on The First Academy's team out of Florida for two seasons.
Lillian Knetter (Madison, WI) was an honorable mention all-state golfer as a senior in addition to the first-team all-conference award that she earned as a senior while competing for Madison West. She led her team to a second-place finish at regionals, finishing as the individual runner-up of the tournament. Lillian also was a fourth-place finisher at the First Flight of the Wisconsin Women's State Golf Amateur Event.
Amisha Singh (Aurora, CO) shot an average of 77 during her senior year at Smoky Hill High School. She finished in a tie for 18th at the 5A Colorado State Championships in 2017 and climbed to 14th in 2018. Amisha was the first golfer to qualify for the state tournament from her high school since 2008 and was Second-Team All-State in 2018 in Class 5A.
Natalie Spitzer (Chicago, IL) played four years of high school golf at Hinsdale Central where she was the 2018 individual champion of the IHSA West Suburban Conference tournament. She pushed her team to a third-place finish at the state championships.