The Indiana University Women’s Golf team hit the tees on Tuesday for the Coeur d’Alene Resort Collegiate Invitational in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The tournament was comprised of two rounds of golf on day one and one round the next.
Following the Ptarmigan Ram Classic where the team tied for sixth, the Hoosiers came out with flashes of improvement on day one, finishing the first two rounds in fourth-place. However, a score of 11-over-par in the third round dropped the team to their final spot in seventh-place with a two-day team score of 14-over-par.
“I definitely think smart decisions is a big key in all of this,” sophomore Elisa Pierre said. “I think if we just ensure our short game a little more that’s going to be key to moving up a little bit. If things start to go south, we need to hang in there and really fight back.
The Hoosiers entered the tournament with five underclassmen— two sophomore and three freshman. Despite the youth and little collegiate experience, it was freshman Mary Parsons who put up a score of three-over-par and finished tied for 20th overall and first among the IU golfers.
Parsons’s place on the leaderboard was helped in large part to her play on the par-five holes, where she posted a total score of four-under-par in the three rounds.
“I knew I had enough distance to make birdie on those and get close on my second shot," Parsons said. "On those I just tried to get as close to the green as I could and then make it up and down for birdie.”
After opening the tournament with a triple bogey on her starting hole, hole four, Parsons was able to rebound with a one-under-par in round two and moved her way up the leaderboard.
“Coming off that with the first hole I knew I had 35 more holes to play that day,” Parsons said. “Being able to rebound, it was just keep pushing towards the next hole, hitting the shots and giving myself opportunities to try to make birdies.”
Coeur d’Alene Golf Resort, rated by Golf Digest as one of Idaho’s best golf resorts, is most notable for its “floating green” on hole 14. The par-3 is simply as the name would imply— a green placed in the middle of water, 218 yards away from where a player would tee-off-- meaning one small mistake could lead to a big splash on the scorecard.
“That was a lot of fun, it’s not something you see everywhere,” Pierre said. “It was a very cool hole, interesting play."
With no home tournaments this season, the Hoosiers will head south on Friday, October 6, to Lexington, Kentucky for the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational. Despite the constant travel, the team anticipates no extra obstacles.
“I’d say it does bring us a lot closer,” Pierre said. “As for challenges, I don’t really see any there. I think that’s a huge advantage for us and it’s going to be very fun to have most of the team out there playing in tournaments like that.”
