September 17-19, 2006
 

Back to Montana for round two of this season’s tournaments. The town of Helena was our destination for the weekend/week and it was hosted by Carroll College at Green Meadows golf course just out side of Helena. All three days of play were played in the most spectacular weather—cold mornings which later turned into crystal clear, warm, sunny, splendid afternoons. I wish I could report on our golf games with the same enthusiasm, however, it was not to be. The men’s team sadly settled into fourth place overall having been beat by Montana Tech, Rocky Mountain and the University of Victoria. Once again the greens were our down fall. They had just been punched the Thursday prior to the tournament and they were running rough (although they held very well on approach shots). The LCSC team lost confidence early on as putts were just not making it into the hole. It was tuff mentally and I think we all learned from the situation. The rest of the course was in immaculate condition. The fairways were as smooth as a new carpet and the rough was lush, thick and tough to hit out of. A good looking course that had its easy “go for it” holes and its tuff “stay out of trouble” holes. It was not our best finish and we now have just a bit more work to do in the next tournament. The tournament was thoroughly enjoyed by all and I hope that this tournament will be a learning curve for the next one, which shall be back in Montana this coming weekend.  

Nick

This week Carroll College hosted the Frontier Conference at Green Meadows Country Club. Seeing as this is my junior year I knew what to expect, punched greens. We all played a practice round on Sunday and decided that the best way to approach putting was to putt through the punch marks rather than to play off the punch marks. Another thing about the Carroll tournament is that we always expect the worst weather for golf, snow. However, we really lucked out this year with 65 degree sunny days.

The girl’s team was really pumped to play and to keep the small lead we had. Again we had a top five and then three girls playing as individuals.  The order was changed up a little allowing for a freshman in the top five. This in a way changed the dynamic because we didn’t know what to expect. 

During the first round we took a three stroke lead over Rocky Mountain College. Our little Columbian came out shooting a lights out even round. The day seemed to be getting nicer but only weather wise. The second round was a disaster. Villa played well again but the rest of us struggled terribly. While Rocky Mountain shot probably their lowest team round ever, we were disappointed in ourselves. We lost our three strokes and were looking straight into a seventeen hole deficit. We knew seventeen strokes was a lot to make up in one round but we went into the final round with our heads up. As a team we improved but Rocky again shot low, taking the win by twenty strokes.

As a team we were very frustrated with our caliber of play but instead of becoming angry we looked at the loss as a learning experience. We decided that our second rounds are always the hardest and that when we lose concentration we gain strokes. To combat this dilemma we decided that playing golf stroke by stroke is a better game plan than thinking about it as hole by hole. Personally my experience with the embarrassing second round made me rethink my approach to the game. Instead of thinking golf for eight hours I would only think about my swing when I set-up. Somewhere I heard that Pros think about their swings for only twenty minutes during an eighteen hole round. Gosh I hope it continues to work for me.

Well next week we head to Billings, Rocky home course, to duel it out. We have a lot of ground to make up but with some concentration and some member bounces we have a chance.

Till next time,

Samara Kluever