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Emma de Groot landed in Chattanooga last August and headed almost directly to freshman orientation.

There was little time to drop off her bags and meet her new teammates, and certainly no time to get in a few holes of golf. Jet-lagged from the long flight from Australia, she really felt trepidation the first time she pulled out her clubs in America.

“I remember thinking, ‘What if I’m so much worse than everybody else on the team?’” de Groot said. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t be the worst one on the team.”

As de Groot has proven, she’s the best.

The Southern Conference freshman of the year received an invitation to the NCAA East Regional as an individual. Competition begins Thursday at the University of Georgia Golf Course in Athens.

De Groot has helped the Lady Mocs and coach Colette Murray start a whole new book on UTC women’s golf, which had not existed since 1984. The season went better than expected with the team winning four tournaments.

Individually, de Groot won twice, finished second three times and placed in the top 10 in all but two tournaments this school year.

“We’ve done things here that nobody has done before,” Murray said. “To make it to regionals — it would have been nice to go as a team — I’m kind of proud of myself, which I’ve never been before.

“Emma deserves it, and I couldn’t be any happier for her.”

Murray learned of de Groot through a friend she met at Jacksonville State who was in Australia. E-mail played a crucial role as de Groot settled on UTC early in the recruiting process.

“I thought was a diamond in the rough waiting to shine,” Murray said. “And I was right.”

De Groot’s doubts about her ability to play college golf subsided after she finished second in UTC’s first three tournaments.

“Once I started seeing the standard we play against, I started thinking, ‘I can beat her; I can hit this shot,’” de Groot said. “Then you start to expect more from yourself and believe in yourself.”

Murray has helped improve de Groot’s short game over the course of the season, and that helped her win the Samford University Women’s Intercollegiate by six shots and the Larry Nelson Invitational by three over teammate Christine Wolf.

“She’d pull out her 56-degree wedge for everything,” Murray said. “Now she plays the bump-and-runs and she’s got a lot more shots now.”

As a freshman, de Groot has plenty of time to improve each aspect of her game before possibly pursuing a professional golf career.

That’s years from now. The regional is just a day away.

Eight teams will advance from Athens to the national championship, and the two best players not on those teams will also head to Albuquerque to chase the title.

“I’ve never gone through anything like this before, and I don’t think I really understand how much of a deal it is,” de Groot said. “I just go and I play, and I make it to this and that, but I don’t get caught up in what I really is. I just play and let the rest take care of itself.”