April 13, 2010

Lady Vol sophomore golfer Nathalie Mansson was named SEC Women's Golfer of the Week, the conference office announced on Tuesday.

It's the Stockholm, Sweden, native's first-ever SEC Weekly award and it comes on the heels of her runner-up individual performance at the Bryan National Collegiate from April 2-4 in Browns Summit, N.C.

Mansson tied her career-best score at the three-day tournament held at the Bryan Park Golf and Enrichment Center, carding a 69-74-70=213 (-3) to lead Tennessee to a tied for sixth-place team finish.

She ended the event two strokes behind medalist Cheyenne Woods of Wake Forest, but tallied her fourth consecutive top-10 finish.

Her seven total top-10 finishes and 12 rounds of par or better in 2009-10 both rank as the fourth-most ever on the Lady Vol single-season records charts.

In nine tournaments this season, Mansson leads the No. 14/16-ranked Lady Vols with a 72.96 stroke average and 75 birdies. With three tournaments remaining, she is within striking distance of the UT single-season stroke average record of 73.06 set by Young-A Yang in 2000-01.

In the final round of tournaments this season, the 2009 honorable mention Golfweek All-America selection has been particularly spectacular, carding a 71.22 last-round average.

Mansson previously shot her career-best score at the Tennessee-hosted Mercedes-Benz Women's Collegiate Championships in a playoff, while also shooting a 3-under 213.

That victory was the first of two consecutive team and individual tournament sweeps for the Lady Vols and Mansson, as they also finished atop the leaderboard at the Alamo Invitational to wrap up the fall schedule later that month.

The second-year star has also earned two Lady Vol Athlete of the Week awards this season and is currently ranked No. 14 in both the Golfweek/Sagarin individual ratings and the Golfstat Cup standings.

Mansson will be chasing more accolades as she leads the Lady Vols into the SEC Championship this Friday through Sunday at the North River Country Club in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

UT will tee off from the first hole at 8:30 a.m. on Friday. Live scoring will be provided by golfstat.com, and live updates can be found at twitter.com/UTLadyVols.