BOCA RATON, Fla. – Golf is back, and the University of Kentucky women’s golf team is preparing to play in its first tournament of the spring season. The Wildcats will take on the field at the Paradise Invitational at Osprey Point-Raven & Falcon in Boca Raton, Florida, on Monday and Tuesday.

No. 34 Kentucky will play 36 holes Monday, with an 8 a.m. ET shotgun start off hole No. 1, paired with No. 21 Oklahoma State and No. 44 Oklahoma. The Wildcats will play their final 18 holes Tuesday, with an 8 a.m. ET shotgun start, too.

The field will play a stroke-play standard format.

Thirteen teams make up the Paradise Invitational, including host Florida Atlantic. Also in the field are Cincinnati, Denver, East Carolina, Florida International, Kennesaw State, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Rutgers, Texas Tech and Tulane.

The Wildcats have seen six of those teams, including ECU, FIU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Rutgers and Texas Tech. The Cats own a 5-1 record against those teams in the head-to-head count, just falling behind the Cowgirls at the Charles Schwab Women’s Collegiate Invitational.

Kentucky’s lineup for the first tournament this spring includes Marta López Echevarría, Anastaisa Hekkonen, Brooke Oberparleiter or C.A. Carter, Cathryn Brown and Karlie Campbell.

The Wildcats sport a young, yet competitive roster in 2024-25. All but one player on the roster are freshmen or sophomores, gaining valuable experience with each event.

Marta López Echevarría, the team’s lone senior, boasts an impressive 71.8 stroke average through three tournaments and nine rounds last fall. Eight of her nine rounds contributed to the team total, while five of the nine rounds were par-or-better. She finished in the top 20 in all three of her appearances last fall, including a fifth-place finish and a T6 finish. In fact, she recorded a career-best, even-par 213 to land T6 at the Charles Schwab, the team’s most recent tournament.

The Wildcats, as a team, hauled in a 290.5 through four tournaments and 12 rounds in their fall events. If the season ended today, that output would be the fourth-best stroke average in program history, while the three seasons ahead of it includes a roster of two All-Americans.

This week’s tournament is the first of four for the team before competing in the Southeastern Conference Tournament at the Pelican Golf Club in Tampa, Florida, beginning on April 14 and a hopeful NCAA Regional bid.

The field can expect sunny skies and temperatures in the high 70s in Boca Raton.

Big Blue Nation is encouraged to follow live scoring here.

For the latest on the Kentucky women’s golf team, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.