Lori Bonacci took over as head coach for The Citadel women's golf program ahead of the 2007-08 season.
During her tenure, the Bulldogs have amassed 38 top 10 finishes, including the first tournament victory in program history. The Citadel has had 20 players finish in the top 10, including 10 by Eraina Manor and four by current Bulldog, Cameron Little.
During the 2016-17 season Bonacci and company hosted the inaugural Oyster Shuck Match Play tournament at Patriots Point Links that featured eight teams and three matches over a two-day span, marking the second consecutive year Bonacci hosted a tournament with the first coming in the spring of 2016.
At the 2016-17 SoCon Championships, Bonacci guided Little to a career-best 34th place finish as the junior shot a season-low 76 in the first round.
Bonacci helped steer the top golfer in The Citadel history as Manor capped her four-year career with the lowest career scoring average in program history. Manor is the only Bulldog to ever record a sub-81 career scoring average.
Bonacci led Manor and the rest of the squad to a solid 2015-16 campaign that featured the first tournament hosted by the Bulldogs in more than a decade. The Citadel also picked up its second consecutive dual win in 2015-16 and third overall event champion when the Bulldogs ousted Wooster and Little earned medalist honors.
Manor highlighted the 2014-15 season by recording the second-best scoring average in program history. She averaged 79.82 strokes per round, just the second individual Bulldog to post a sub-80 average in a season. Bonacci led Manor and The Citadel to three top-five finishes, including a second-place finish at the Dayton Invitational.
The 2013-14 season saw a marked improvement in the program. Led by Manor’s 80.96 average, the fourth best in Citadel history, the Bulldogs won their first team championship (2014 Hilton Head Spring Break Dual vs. Dayton), finished eighth at the Southern Conference Tournament, the second-highest in school history and had its second individual winner when Anderson forced a three-way tie for first at the dual with the Flyers.
Bonacci began making strides in her first year at the helm (2007-08) as she decreased the Bulldogs’ overall stroke average by 7.33 from the previous season while also increasing The Citadel’s level of competition.
The improvements continued in the 2008-09 as The Citadel again sliced its stroke average down to 87.15. The Cadets earned four top 10 finishes, including a season-best eighth at the Stono Cup.
Bonacci’s work with Bree Baumgartner and Alanna Jean-Keith was vital to the decline of stroke averages for a third straight year in 2009-10. Baumgartner finished with an average of 81.65 while Jean-Keith had an average of 82.06. As a unit The Citadel shot 85.06.
Pellegrini arrived on the scene in 2010-11 and played in all 24 rounds of the team’s 10 tournaments, finishing with a stroke average of 82.08.
By the close of the 2011-12 season Bonacci’s hard work with the program was beginning to pay dividends. The stroke average was at an all-time best (82.09) and Pellegrini captured the first individual championship at a tournament at Hilton Head. The team had six top 10 finishes, including a second-place showing at the Hilton Head Invitational. Individually, Pellegrini continued to lead the way for the Bulldogs, setting a school record at the time with an 81.45 average.
In 2012-13 The Citadel brought home three more top 10 finishes including fifth at the South Carolina State Bulldog Invitational.
A 2004 graduate of Youngstown State, Bonacci earned her undergraduate degree in marketing and was a four-year letterwinner. Her junior year, Bonacci led the Penguins to the first Horizon League Championship in program history while earning medalist honors. She followed that performance by again capturing all-conference and all-tournament accolades her senior season.
Prior to her collegiate debut, Bonacci played in the highly esteemed United States Girls Amateur Tournament as well as in various tournaments with the American Junior Golf Association. In 2000, she won the P.J. Boatwright Challenge Cup Junior State Championship in Pennsylvania.
A native of Wheeling, W.Va., Bonacci taught golf for six years at The Oglebay Resort where she was an instructor in the junior golf department. She and her husband, Anthony, reside in Summerville, S.C., with their two children, Emily Gianna and Miles.
