Kiara Hayashida and Milena Savich will transfer from Pepperdine and Michigan, respectively, to join the Georgia women’s golf team this fall, head coach Kelley Hester announced on Wednesday. Both golfers will be sophomores and immediately eligible to compete for the Bulldogs in the 2009-10 season.

“I am extremely pleased to add Kiara and Milena for the fall,” Hester said. “Kiara has a tremendous international record, and Milena is a hard-working, solid competitor. Both will add some much needed depth to our roster.”

Hayashida is a native of Lima, Peru and was Peru’s top-ranked amateur in 2008. Hayashida captured the 2007 South American Junior Championship where she was the only player to finish under par and posted a two-shot victory over Colombia’s Maria Jose Uribe, the 2007 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion.

Hayashida attended Heritage Academy and the Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy in Hilton Head, S.C., along with Marta Silva Zamora, the 2009 SEC Freshman of the Year for Georgia. As a freshman at Pepperdine, Hayashida played in four tournaments, including a 17th-place finish at the Wave Invitational.

Savich, a native of Carmel, Ind., was a member of the Wolverine’s playing five for all 13 tournaments during 2008-09. She was the team’s top individual finisher at six events, posting nine top-20, six top-10 and one top-5 finishes. Savich recorded three par-or-better rounds, including a 69
in the second round of The Landfall Tradition. She completed the season with a 77.03 stroke average, second-best on the Michigan roster.

Savich was an honorable mention AJGA/Rolex Junior All-American in 2007 and was runner-up for medalist honors at the 2007 Indiana High School Athletic Association State Tournament after losing a two-hole sudden-death playoff.

The additions of Hayashida and Savich give Georgia 10 golfers on its 2009-10 roster. The returning Bulldogs include seniors Carolina Andrade, Melissa Brody and Leigh Crosby and sophomores Tess Fordham and Silva Zamora. During the fall, Emilie Burger, Kendall Wright and Abby Johnson all inked scholarships with UGA.

Despite finishing the 2008-09 campaign with only five scholarship golfers, UGA still finished 15th at the 2009 NCAA Championships to post the program’s 24th top-20 finish in the last 31 national championships.

- Georgia Sports Communications