Oct. 8-10, 2006
 
Western Washington 

To cap off our season usually we venture north to Victoria, Canada; however, this year we wanted some stiffer competition. So, we changed our last tournament venue to Bellingham, Washington to play in the Western Washington Invitational. We all had been playing well and had high expectations for the hard competition. The course was beautiful. Tall, old trees line the rough at the Bellingham Country Club, the oldest course in the area. We had some help with tactics because a previous LC player works as an assistant at the Bellingham Country Club. He gave each of us some helpful tips and explained some course management tactics for most of the holes.

The first day was exciting because we had no idea where we would stand at the end of the day. Juanita ended up being in fourth after the first day. As a team however we really struggled. I personally played horrendous; I became frustrated and seemed to waste good holes by making foolish doubles. We were all disappointed in our play and knew that day two needed to be better.

On the second day many of the girls did play better but still weren’t playing well for our standards. After the tournament was over we all were bummed to not have proved ourselves to the division II teams. We’ve decided that next year we want to go back to Bellingham to improve and prove that the Warriors are a threat. Our final tournament didn’t go as well as we would have liked but we have all winter to train. We are going to condition and gain some muscle over our off season to gain some yardage. The spring is just around the corner and we will be ready to compete. I know the spring will bring green fairways and some great golf. Schedule to come watch one of our home tournaments and cheer the Warrior Women’s Golf Team to VICTORY!

I will keep you posted on our off-season progress. 

Thanks for your support, 

Samara Kluever
 

Trip to Canada 

The fourth and final tournament of the season, well I can say it was great, no let’s try awesome. It was an adventure all the way, I can say this, now that I’m back at college. The coaches decided to leave really late on Saturday morning (relief to all team members) and not the usual, early five am kick start. We left a day early just so our time restraints would not strangle us. As part of a planning strategy, it was a good idea; however, our trusty and reliable bus became unreliable down a stretch of vacant road. I thought that maybe we were stopping for some sort of relevance purposes, but not this time. It was for real and we were now stuck with miles of road ahead and not a thing in sight….fun! Two hours later, and with the helping hand of a kind old farmer, and some "on the spot ingenuity-and patience" and we were well on our way (I think we could have been there all day).

We arrived in Bellingham close to night fall and got momentarily lost (in a neighborhood), but I think Jim, the driver, was just trying to get us settled into our new surroundings, good on him. After a well needed night’s sleep and a few shenanigans, the boys were off to Victoria, Canada with Coach P. Thompson. I think the team was excited, but I myself, was rather nervous because I was not entirely sure how things would pan out at the border. The border crossing went well and the ferry trip was just as exciting and fun. Our spirits were high and we were once again expecting a great performance.

The Cordova course was lengthy, looked stunning and was in wonderful condition--very esthetically pleasing I might add. The greens were large, quick and ran true. The event was two days with eighteen on both days and not the usual thirty six, eighteen layout. We could not have asked for better weather than what we played in over the two day period, sunny, warm, blue skies, Wow!! As individuals we all played average golf or at least obtained scores that were not indicative of our potential. The problem was, in most cases, trying to get used to the fact that the ball did not carry as far as one would have thought ( course was at sea level). If it had been our tournament we probably could have come second however we came in fifth and beat some big rivals, which boosted our standing to a proud tenth in the country.

The trip was great fun and even coach P.T threw in some good, sound, childish comments which cracked us all up. A trip to remember and thanks goes out to Jim for bringing us home safely on Wednesday morning and on prior outings. And finally thank you to those parents who came all the way to Canada to support the team, it was great to have you there and hope you had as much fun as the guys did. I think both guys and girls will take some time off before hitting some lengthy practice sessions for next season. 

From myself, cheers till next season. 

Nik