The Big Ten Conference announced today that Gopher women's golfer Teresa Puga has been named Big Ten Conference Golfer of the Week. This is the second Big Ten Conference weekly award of the season for Puga and the fourth of her career.

Puga, a senior from A Coruña, Spain (Blume HS), led the Gophers to a fifth place finish at the Mountain View Collegiate in Tucson, Ariz. over the weekend. She finished in a tie for 12th place after carding rounds of 70-74-74 for a 54-hole total of 218. It was her fifth top-20 finish of the season and will enter next week’s Pinehurst Challenge with a team-low stroke average of 72.9.

Earlier this season, Puga tied for medalist honors at the 2011 UCF Challenge. It was the first win of her career and the first Gopher medalist since Young Na Lee won the Diablo Grande Intercollegiate in March of 2008. 

Puga, who holds virtually every scoring record in program history, added to her legacy by carding a program-best 54-hole score of 208 at the UCF Challenge en route to sharing the title. Included in her three-day total was a final round six-under-par 66, which tied a team record set by Julie Gumlia in the spring of 1977.

She was awarded her first career weekly award on Feb. 24, 2010, becoming the first Minnesota player to be named player of the week since Terra Petsinger received the conference’s selection on March 24, 2005. Her other weekly awards came on March 24, 2010 and Feb. 17, 2011.

Up next for the Gophers is a trip to Pinehurst, N.C. on Apr. 4-5 to take part in the Pinehurst Challenge at the prestigious Pinehurst Golf Course.