In her 17 years as Auburn’s head women’s golf coach, the Tigers have won six SEC Championships, and as Kim Evans so bluntly pointed out, not one of them have been at home.

So much for home-course advantage, as Auburn hosts this year’s SEC event at the Auburn University Club today through Sunday.

“I really think it’s just where you are mentally,” Evans said. “For some, I think it’s a toss up. I think it’s to your advantage, because you know the course. You know if it gets windy or rainy or all that, you know all those things. But being at home brings extra pressure.

“The parents get to come. That’s fun. They get to sleep in their own bed. That’s great. They do know the course. But I think part of it is you do add a little bit extra expectations that you are at home and you should win.”

Expectations and pressure are major hurdles in golf, so that’s why Evans said she and her staff are taking a different approach this week as the Tigers prepare for the conference championship in their own backyard.

“We’ve gone light with them,” Evans said. “We’ve tried not to bear down on them and say, ‘Try to learn this course’ and ‘Try to do this.’ We just want them to have the week and prepare kind of on their own.”

In preparing, the Tigers have come to a very simple, almost cliche conclusion: Be consistent.

With three veteran juniors as the top golfers on the squad, Auburn has experience and talent, according to its players and head coach, but it just hasn’t put it together as a team in an event this year.

“I think once we get everyone in one tournament to play well, we’ll dominate,” said the Tigers’ No. 1 player Cydney Clanton, who is sixth in the SEC in stroke average (72.43) this season. “We have a lot of talent. We have a lot of old talent, that’s been here. We really don’t have any rookies.

“Everyone has played, everyone has been in an SEC Championship. Quite a few of us have won an SEC Championship (2009). It’s just a matter of everyone playing well at the same time.”

That, and not giving in to the pressure and expectations.

“I just think for all of us it’s just to stay steady and not to get caught up in the fact that we’re at home.” said junior Haley Wilson, who’s the Tigers’ No. 2 player and hails from Central High School in Phenix City, where she played the AU Club numerous times as a prep star.

Currently, eight of the 12 SEC teams are ranked in the top 25, with Auburn being 20th. Alabama is No. 2, while LSU is sixth, Arkansas 11th, Tennessee 13th, Georgia 14th, Vanderbilt 19th and Florida tied for 24th.

Auburn’s best performance of the season was a third-place finish at the Pac 10/SEC Challenge in Palo Alto, Calif., in November.

“The competition will be huge,” Evans said. “I always say in the SEC, anyone can win. No one knows when someone’s peaking or how two or three girls can have the week of their lives.

“Right now, we have teams that can win the national championship. When you bring that in this area, on this kind of golf course, anything can happen.”

| 737-2513