Dixie State University golf teams saw success with high placing in the fall, giving the players and coaches high hopes for the spring.
The women’s golf team finished first at a tournament at Colorado Mesa University Sept. 30, while the men’s team took second place at California State University, Chico Oct. 7. Both results left players and coaches with high hopes for the spring when play will resume.
“This was our best fall to date,” women’s head coach Rachel Harmon said. “We made a lot of strides this fall. We had our first tournament win, which was our first team win. Then we also had two individual wins with Haley [Dunn] and Brittney [Bisgrove]. We broke our team scoring record three times, so this was definitely a productive fall.”
Both teams have ended the fall season and now the players have to work individually on what they need to improve on, said men’s golfer Hayden Christensen, a senior business major from Vancouver, Washington.
The season will resume for both teams Feb. 9, 2015. The men’s team will open up at home for the Southern Utah University Pat Hicks Invitational at Sunbrook golf course. The women’s team starts on the road in San Diego at the Point Loma University Super San Diego Women’s Championship.
“The spring time is our main season,” Harmon said. “We have four more regular season tournaments and then our conference championship, which we are hosting here in April. So the teams will come here for the Pacific West Conference Championship.”
Having the conference championship in St. George allows the players to have an advantage as they can play here as often as they want. Several players mentioned how big it would be to play here at home for the conference title.
“I think it will give us a pretty good advantage since we can play here as much as we want,” said Haley Dunn, a senior integrated studies major from Layton. “I’m pretty sure we will be able to get some low scores and hopefully take the title.”
The players will look to improve upon their successful fall campaign and continue to lower their scores. The men’s team averaged a team score of 288.78 per round. In its second-place finish, it had two rounds of 293 and then a 289 finish. The women’s team averaged 312.33 and in its win in Colorado put up scores of 312 and 317 in the two rounds.
“I am traveling to play in different tournaments,” Christensen said. “A couple of the other guys are playing in local tournaments here in St. George just to keep the competition aspect in our minds. We normally play together as a team and try to be the low score out there and keep the competition going.”
Although they compete against each other, the players are staying close in other ways to keep the chemistry strong between them.
“We are all pretty close,” Dunn said. “We all still spend a lot of time together outside of golf. That’s a good thing that we aren’t just a team on the golf course, we are a team off the golf course. So with that unity it will help us to practice together and play better.”
With strong finishes during the fall, both teams have promising outlooks on the spring and what is ahead for DSU golf, several players said.
