Furman golfer Natalie Srinivasan has been announced as the Division-I PING Women’s Golf Coaches Association National Player of the Year.
“You see all these people who win and think maybe that could be me one day and it’s just been surreal,” Srinivasan said. “Obviously I wasn’t able to finish (playing) my last semester so that’s been nice they’re still doing these postseason awards. It’s been really positive.”
The Spartanburg, S.C., native earlier this week was named a WGCA Division-I First-Team All-American, just the seventh first-team selection in Furman history and first since 1998. She is also one of 10 remaining in consideration for the ANNIKA Award given annually to the nation’s most outstanding Division-I golfer. It will be announced next month.
“First team is pretty hard to get, you have to play really well and I was lucky enough to be able to play well this year at the right time,” Srinivasan said. “That’s been really cool to represent Furman and give the name recognition.”
Furman coach Jeff Hull said in a release, “I am so proud of Natalie for being the recipient of the PING WGCA Player of the Year award,” Hull said in a release. “She had an amazing career at Furman and for her to cap it off with this award is a testament to her hard work and dedication over the past four years. Natalie epitomizes what a student-athlete should be and has set a very high bar going forward.”
Srinivasan finished this past abbreviated season as the country’s top-ranked women’s player by Golfstat and is 14th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. She posted three victories, a solo second (finishing one back in her final Furman event at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate at Hilton Head’s Long Cove Club) and ties for 16th and 26th in her six starts as a senior.
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She led the Southern Conference in wins and with a 70.78 stroke average, a full shot lower than her nearest competitor and her 72.6 career stroke average over 118 rounds is the lowest in Furman history. She earned a second-consecutive invitation to play in the now-canceled Augusta National Women’s Amateur and was likely to be selected for the prestigious U.S. Curtis Cup team before that event was postponed until next year.
″(The Curtis Cup) was kind of what I was looking forward to after the season got canceled and I probably would’ve been on the team so it’s unfortunate,” Srinivasan said. “But it’s been nice to have these other honors to kind of make up for that and have a little positivity right now.”
Srinivasan was the 2018 Southern Conference Player of the Year and a three-time all-conference selection. She has a 3.87 GPA in health and sciences and will graduate in May. She was the recipient of the Winston Babb Memorial Award, given by the Furman Chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa to the woman in each class who has demonstrated the most outstanding qualities of leadership, scholarship, and service to the university.
She plans on turning professional after graduation.
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