Coming back from an extended break in golf action is never easy, and that first tournament is mostly used to dust off the cobwebs and gauge where the team is competitively.
That was the situation for Bradley women’s golf as they headed southwest to Arizona to play in the Rio Verde Invitational last weekend.
“The first round of every competition is just a learning experience, just kind of learning where your game’s at, what faults you have in competition,” fifth year senior Megan Welch said. “The last two rounds, it was just like reminding myself before every shot like what my tendencies are and making sure to continuously keep pushing forward.”
On the first day of the tournament, senior Mara Flaherty achieved one of the rarest feats in golf by scoring an albatross – when a golfer finishes three strokes under par for a hole – with a two on the par-five sixth hole.
“Pretty much everyone was going for it and she hit a great drive down there, she had an eight iron in her hand and she just hit the shot and it was going right into the pin,” Braves’ head coach Halley Morell said.
“There was a bunker there so we actually couldn’t see it going in ‘cause it went over the bunker but there was luckily some fans around the green and they started cheering and going crazy and then we did too, so it was pretty exciting,” Morell added.
Golf sometimes seems more of an individual sport, but in college it’s played more as a team sport, where multiple people are needed to pull together simultaneously.
“Every person on the team made contributions on different days,” Morell said. “Luckily we’ve been able to play outside these last couple weekends in Peoria so I think that helped.”
The Braves placed eighth overall out of 18 teams, just above Illinois State, who was favored over Bradley in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason polls. Junior Grace Aromando and Welch led the Braves, tying for the 23rd spot with nine other golfers. Aromando finished the weekend 79-74-74, while Welch improved each day scoring 80-74-73.
“It was really scorable, there was potential to score on different holes, but you also had to think your way around the golf course and you couldn’t just get up there and hit the shot and then hit the next shot,” Welch said. “You really had to plan out a couple shots in advance and kind of prepare for that, so I think it tested every part of your game.”
While the weather cooperated for the first two days of the tournament, Sunday’s activities had to be pushed back by 30 minutes after Rio Verde was hit by significant rainfall. With most of the damage being done overnight, random hailstorms and much windier conditions added another obstacle for the Braves, as freshman Allison Pacocha finished tied in 41st scoring 80-71-79.
“It was like a whole new golf course on the third day, so we really had to adapt and we talked about it in our meeting Saturday night so we had to change our game plan,” Pacocha said. “It didn’t play as firm and you weren’t going to get the bounces that you got the previous days and you were going to get more spin.”
Despite the obstacles, Bradley came out of the tournament with a much clearer vision for what the team will look like this spring.
“I thought our mental game was a lot better than it was in the fall,” Morell said. “I think the biggest thing is just having a consistent mental process of every shot, both pre-shot, during the shot and actually how we’re reacting to each shot afterwards.”
Bradley takes a two week break before traveling to Texas for the HCU Husky Invitational. While some Braves like Pacocha have a lot of their collegiate career ahead of them, others like Welch are reaching the final curtain call.
“Enjoying every moment since it is my last year, not allowing the “lasts” to get in my mind throughout the round but saving them for after the round and kind of dealing with them then,” Welch said of what she plans on focusing on these next few months.
[…] Source […]