Women's golf gets in to the swing of things

By Margo Consul

The birdies are flying for the women's golf team.

After a disappointing fourth-place finish last season in the West Coast Conference tournament, Santa Clara has come out strong in the three tournaments of their fall preseason schedule.

"When we debuted this year, our ranking was like 140-something, which is not good," sophomore Miki Ueoka said. "I think after our last tournament our ranking went up like 30 or 40 spots, so it's 108."

Santa Clara uses the tournaments as a way to gauge their play before going into the spring season.

"For the fall, we just want to get a really good start," Ueoka said. "We just kind of want to get a solid ranking to go into spring season. We're just looking to do our best."

The Broncos opened the preseason with a third-place finish at the BMW College Challenge.

Ueoka tied for fifth, while freshman Meaghan Kari tied for eighth place.

Sophomore Katie Sharpe, junior Jamie Nonaka and freshman Tammy Surtees also finished in the top 20.

Surtees and Kari are looking to bring in a breath of fresh air for the team.

"She's funny, she's got a great personality, she's got the right attitude on the golf course, you can tell that she's really competitive," Ueoka said of Kari.

Ueoka added, "She really wants to take it to another level, which is good because that's what you need: someone who is willing and ready. She's an amazing player."

"Tammy is a really long hitter. She can hit the ball pretty far, and she's pretty consistent as far as her shots. She shoots straight," Ueoka said.

The team also competed in the Boise State Invitational, where they set some new personal and school records.

Santa Clara set a new team-low score at 294, beating the previous record of 296, which was set in 2003.

Ueoka tied for first and won her first collegiate event with a new personal low score of 70 in each of the two rounds, overall totaling four under par.

The native of Hawaii attributed her strong finish to her work on the mental aspect of the game.

"As (Head Coach) Polly (Schulze) would say, golf is a really mental sport," Ueoka said. "I can kind of turn it off and on you know. Still, you're never going to perfect it, but I feel like that is something that I have worked on."

Kari finished tied for 10th, earning her second top-10 finish in a collegiate tournament.

"I thought I was going to be way behind," she said of her first year at the collegiate level. "I thought I was going to come in and automatically feel like a freshman because I would be youngest and the one with the least experience."

Santa Clara competed in their third tournament on Nov. 3 and 4 at the Cal Poly Women's Invitational, where they came in seventh.

With a solid start underway, the goals the team had set at the beginning of the fall preseason now seem attainable.

"We want to be in the top 50," Kari said. "I think we want to lower our ranking as our number one goal as a team."

Ueoka added, "Our biggest thing is that we want to win conference."

With their fall preseason over, the team will start competing again in February.

Santa Clara will next play in the UC Riverside Lady Braveheart Invitational on Feb. 9-10 at Oak Valley Golf Course in Beaumont, Calif.

Contact Margo Consul at (408) 551-1918 or at mconsul@scu.edu.