On March 27-28, the Union men’s and women’s golf teams competed in the Union University Spring Bulldog Bash at the Canebrake Golf Club in Athens, Alabama. The men’s team finished in fourth place, and the women’s team finished in fifth place.
The GSC Championships will be the capstone to a golf season that has seen major improvement from both the men’s and the women’s teams with the men being in a position to go to regionals for the first time since coach Ryan Chandler joined the program.
When you first think of golf, the words “competitive” or “intense” might not always come to mind. For the average person, golf is just a fun hobby that you play with a group of friends on a Saturday afternoon if it’s nice out. However, with pressure coming to perform well and secure a spot on the roster going to the GSC Championships, and the mental struggle involved in golf as well, those words become very real very fast. There are always a variety of different elements that can contribute to a golf game whether it be staying focused, the weather conditions, getting in your own head, or just having a bad day. The more skilled you are at adapting to these elements, the more you can improve on your golf game. This has been the challenge of Union’s golf teams as they draw closer and closer to the end of the season.
After a somewhat lackluster performance in the past tournament from both teams, they are looking to perform well in the final tournament of the year and potentially take home some trophies. The men’s team especially has a good opportunity as they are ranked in the 4th-5th place range coming into the tournament.
“We wanted to do better as a team in the last tournament, but I think we’re close,” JJ Zimmer, a sophomore and one of the top performers on the men’s team said. “We’re close to finishing pretty strong.”
In the GSC championships, all the teams in the conference gather together to play 54 holes in three days. Only ten teams are accepted to go to regionals from each conference and the Union men’s team is in a position where, if they play well during the conference tournament, they will be able to get a bid and go to regionals. To do this, the men’s team is focused on improving themselves individually and as a team. With only five or six people being able to be selected to go to the conference tournament, it’s going to be a dogfight to see which players get to go.
“Lately I’ve been doing a lot of mental work. That’s kind of what it comes down to with me,” Zimmer said when asked how he’s preparing for the tournament. “When I hold myself back it’s pretty much all mental.”
For the women’s golf team, the story is a bit different. There is no chance for them to go to regionals, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t still finish strong. Perhaps more so than the men’s team, the Lady Bulldogs have seen tremendous improvement from the start of the season to now.
“Major improvement with everybody. Coach set a higher expectation for us this season and we’re all kind of living up to that standard,” senior business administration major Kallie Robertson said when asked about the improvement in the women’s team. “Last semester, we were kind of always bottom of the pack, middle of the pack, and in our first two tournaments this semester we finished second.”
This improvement in the women’s team has put them in a position to finish strong in the GSC tournament and end the season in a better place than they started.
“We’ve played a lot of tournaments, so the experience is there,” Robertson said. “There are a lot of strong teams in the conference, but we have the talent to compete with them. If it all comes together it would be great.”
The women’s team will compete April 3-4 at the Argonaut Invitational in Pensacola, Florida. Next up for the men’s team are the GSC Championships which will take place April 16-18 in Mobile, Alabama.
Photo courtesy of UU Athletics