GLENCOE, Ala.—The Jax State women's golf team will host 15 other teams at RJT Silver Lakes starting Sunday morning for the annual Chris Banister Golf Classic.
 
The event dates back to 1996 and has been hosted each season except 2020, and was hosted in both the spring of 2005 and fall of 2005. It is named in honor of former Jax State assistant golf coach Chris Banister who joined the staff in 1995 and served in may roles within the program until 1999.
 
This is the second spring tournament of the season for the Gamecocks, which finished in a tie for seventh at the Advance Golf Partners Collegiate at Hammock Creek last month.
 
Sophomore Rebekka Stutley leads the team with 40 birdies this season. Her 74.47 average also leads the squad. Freshman Julie Kleppe is second on the team in birdies with 31 and has a pair of eagles. At the last tournament, senior Ebby Somers posted the low round on the roster for the tournament with a two-under 70 in the final round.
 
The 54-hole tournament will start at 8:30 a.m. Sunday and run through Tuesday with assigned tee times off the front and back nine each day. For the first round, the Gamecocks will tee off on the front nine which will be RTJ Silver Lakes' "Backbreaker" course. Jax State will be matched with Tennessee and Bradley in the first round with redshirt junior Rachel Camp leading things off at 8:30. She'll be followed by Somers at 8:39, Stutley at 8:48, and sophomore Lara El Chaib at 9:06.
 
Redshirt sophomore Ashley Stevenson will be on the course for the first time since the Golfweek National Golf Invitational in 2024 when she finished 20^th. She missed last season after undergoing treatment for Parosteal Osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer back in France. She will compete as an individual and will tee off at 9:15 a.m. on Sunday.
 
Additional teams that will make up the field of 93 golfers are Akron, Central Michigan, Chattanooga, Eastern Kentucky, Indiana State, Jacksonville, Longwood, North Dakota, Samford, Seton Hall, Troy, UAB, and West Georgia.