In the opening tournament for the fall season, the women’s golf team took 11th place out of 18 in the Duramed Cougar Classic at Yeman Halls Golf Club in Charleston, S.C. The Pack finished with a total round of +29 lead by junior Brooke Baker and senior Emily Street. The University of Georgia won, which posted a -14, the 54-hole tournament.
“We were pleased about the engagement we saw, the effort the players put in and the chemistry the team showed,” coach Page Marsh said. “We were consistent, but we all saw stretches where it could have been better. That is what every season is about, seeing where you have problems and working toward fixing it. I feel good about what I have seen in the fall and the outlook for the future.”
Baker, who was playing her first tournament as a N.C. State athlete since she transferred from the University of Tulsa, shot a +4 to lead the Pack, which put her in a tie for 25th.
However, it was not her golf game that impressed Marsh — it was her confidence and composure that she showed on the course.
“[Baker] played very consistent, and her demeanor on the course is she stays very in the moment,” Marsh said. “While she will say she is very frustrated, she can come right back with a funny remark. So she has the ability to diffuse tension on the course, which is important.”
Street also played a solid tournament, shooting a +8 and tying for 39th. including a final round +1, which moved her up 13 places from the previous day.
“I started off really rusty,” Street said. “I hadn’t played a tournament round in a while since summer school, so I didn’t start off too well. But I eventually got into the flow of things and got into a rhythm and started playing back in my form at the end of the season.”
Going into the tournament, the team had a main goal of shooting under 300 combined each round. It achieved this goal, shooting a 297-299-297, respectably.
But the final standings did not go the way the team believed it would.
“Our team did really well. We played a really good tournament, but it’s just the fields have gotten really tough now, and it’s so competitive,” Street said. “We expected to shoot under 300 each day, and we did, and we thought that we would place well by doing that but the scores have just gotten so low. Some of the scores are like men’s scores, it’s ridiculous.”
Sophomore Meghan Chapman, junior Julie Saleeby and senior Kathleen Strandberg rounded put the Pack finishing in a tie for 45th, a tie for 56th, and 91st.
Even after succeeding in their goal of shooting under 300 all three rounds, the team knows it still has a lot to work on in order to get to the level other teams are have hit.
“We definitely know we need to continue to work and practice even harder, because we see what the level of competition has risen to in college golf,” Baker said. “We really need to go out there and post some extremely low scores, so we are going to have to set some new goals and just go out there and try to tighten everything up and shoot even lower next time.”
