NEWBERRY — Newberry College head women’s golf coach Clarissa Childs and top player Marianna Monaco will represent the scarlet and gray in the Golf Capital of Tennessee Women’s Open Championship this weekend.
The Newberry duo will represent the scarlet and gray in a field of 91 of the best female professionals and amateurs from across the country. Both amateurs and professionals will play at the same time, with Childs playing as a professional for a chance at a piece of the $25,000 purse.
Monaco is a native of Yonkers, N.Y., who is entering her junior season and will compete as an amateur in the event. She is the 2015 South Atlantic Conference Golfer of the Year and was also the 2014 SAC Freshman of the Year. She won first team all-SAC honors as both a freshman and a sophomore and was a three-time ECAC Golfer of the Month as a sophomore in 2014-15.
She had a stroke average of 77.1 in her sophomore campaign and earned five top five finishes and seven top 10s. Monaco was also the champion of the 2013 Patsy Rendleman Invitational as a sophomore.
Childs is a two-time South Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year (2013 and 2015) and was also named the Southeast Regional Coach of the Year by the LPGA’s Teaching and Coaching Professionals in 2013.
She played on the LPGA Tour from 2002-07, competed on the SBC Futures Tour from 1997-2001. She posted 10 top-10 finishes and recorded a hole-in-one in her first-ever U.S. Women’s Open in 1998. The hole-in-one was the 14th-ever in the U.S. Women’s Open’s history.
Childs was also a star player for the University of South Carolina, earning first team all-Southeastern Conference honors all four years from 1993-96.
Fans can follow the Newberry duo in this tournament at www.TNWomensOpen.com.