The women’s golf teams will be hosting the Empire 8 Invitational this Saturday. The tournament will take place on Houghton’s home course at Allegheny Hills Golf Course in Rushford. The women will be hosting both Nazareth College and Hobart and William Smith, both established programs.
“I am really excited because it is our first match on our home course,” said sophomore Hannah Fink, “So hopefully it will be a beautiful day to compete.”
This season the golf team had two tournaments cancelled in March. One was rescheduled for this coming weekend while the other was dropped. Overall, the team has five tournaments to compete in within two weeks.
“We practiced in the sleet and rain and 36 degrees on Saturday so this recent weather has been good, especially because we only have two weeks left,” said Coach Thomas Kettelkamp.
At the Westminster Invitational last week, Fink had a score of 98, ranking thirteenth out of forty-seven competitors. The other members of the travel team included freshman Breanna Smithley and Kourtnie Franklin, sophomore Taylor Button, and senior Andrea Ypma. The women returned to Keuka this Wednesday to defend their championship title earned at the Keuka Invitational last fall.
“Hannah has been very competitive, while the others are new at the game. It is their first year and I expect them to knock their scores down quite a bit,” said Kettelkamp. “So I would not be surprised if we did not win it again.”
The golf team rarely practices with each other because of the inherent individual nature of the sport. However, they still push each other to practice and do their best as only a certain number of members are able to travel and attend each tournament.
“Although practices are individualized for what you need to work with, like your swing, [golf] is very team oriented because we are always encouraging each other to meet our next goal and do well as a team,” said Fink. “Overall, we have really good team chemistry…and we have a lot of fun.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams have new additions this spring, including freshman Maggie Reynolds and sophomore Jordan Hobba for the women’s team and, for the men, junior John Carpenter and senior Michael Ball.
Thus far, the men’s team has performed in one tournament, hosted by Utica College. The top performances came from Ball, Carpenter, and sophomores Evan Castle and Nathan Sircy at this match. Castle led the team with a score of 92, ranking 31st of 52 golfers. The men are currently preparing for the Empire 8 tournament this weekend in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“Our goal for this season is to keep on improving,” said Sircy. “We are playing better than last season and we hope to keep doing so in the future.”
“Last year, we were last place in every contest. This year, the men were seventh of [nine] … and the women were eighth of [nine], that’s progress,” said Kettelkamp. “We are not going to start at the top, but I do expect to move into the mix a bit. This fall we were not, this spring I think we will be.”