This past Friday, Oct. 3, the Blugolds’ women’s golf competed at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC).
They finished sixth place out of eight teams at the WIAC championship with a score of 1000 (+136) for the team over three rounds. Their scores for these three rounds were 324 (+36), 341 (+53) and 335 (+47).
For reference, the winner of the tournament, UW-Stout, had a final score of 935 (+71). This past Friday marked the fifth time the Blugolds have competed this season.
Assistant Men’s and Women’s Golf Coach Jeff Walk said the season has been an improvement over previous years, because they’ve been able to perform well as a team, not just individually.
Walk said he could also see the team looking out for each other and the older players mentoring the five new members with advice on and off the course.
“Having five other girls to go to about this big transition in your life, it transfers to the golf course,” Walk said.
First-year Tally Schlindwein said she agrees with Walk’s statement and that the older players have helped her learn about her new school.
“I got pretty close with the two seniors, and that definitely was a big part of having a good community around me and making my freshman year enjoyable,” Schlindwein said.
The two fourth-year golfers are Gillian Johnson and Bri Novak, who Walk said have stepped up and been making sure to communicate and answer questions for new players. The Blugolds have also had individual victories at this most recent tournament.
The highest-ranking Blugold member was Schlindwein in seventh place with a score of 240 (+24) over the three rounds, which resulted in scores of 78 (+6), 81 (+9) and 81 (+9).
For the first meet, Schlindwein finished in 25th place. Since then, she has collected two sixth-place finishes.
Lily Kaminski finished in 11th place with a score of 245 (+29), and Elizabeth Herman finished in 35th place with a score of 257 (+41).
Individual first and second place also went to the Blue Devils. Julia Imai finished with an overall score of 230 (+14), and Brin Neumann finished with a score of 233 (+17).
This was the Georgianni Invite and the D3 Classic. Schlindwein said she felt good with her performance this past season and worked on being consistent in her playing.
“Playing every day for hours helps a lot,” Schlindwein said, “Golf is a thing of reps.”
Walk said the team practices about six days per week. Schlindwein said she liked having the often-scheduled practices, as it felt less chaotic than her high school years.
UW-Eau Claire women’s golf season has ended with the WIAC championship and will not pick up again until their spring season.
Their other four competitions have been the CSB Invite, scoring sixth out of 13 teams, the Georgianni Invitational, placing third out of seven teams, the D3 Classic, scoring sixth out of 18 teams and the Midwest Region Classic, scoring fourth out of 20 teams.
Walk said one thing they will work on in the meantime is swing fundamentals, with their first spring tournament in April.
“Now that the competitive season is done, we might take a little break, but then the fun stuff starts,” Walk said. “Working on things that you necessarily wouldn’t want to work on during the season.”
Curtin can be reached at [email protected].
