Women’s Golf Season in Review

May 23, 2006

Most inaugural seasons are about learning, growing and testing the waters with local competition. Not so for the Allegheny College women’s golf team. In just their first year as a varsity program, they have leapfrogged a few steps along the way by advancing to the NCAA Division III National Championships.

The season started strong, with four of the team’s six tournament wins coming in the fall. The team also played in two high profile events during the year; wrapping up the fall season, the NCAA Preview at Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, site of the NCAA Division III Championships, and at the Jekyll Island Collegiate Invitational, in Jekyll Island, Georgia to open the spring season.

“I believe the fall preview and Jekyll Island tournaments were huge for us,” said Allegheny College head coach Jeff Groff. “For one thing, it gave the players a taste of collegiate golf and that they can compete on this level, and secondly, it served notice to others that this is a program on the rise.”

At the Division III preview, the Gators placed sixth of 11 teams, including placing higher than nationally ranked teams Wellesley and McMurry. At Jekyll Island, Allegheny blistered the course, shooting rounds of 346, 351 and 338, leaving in their wake ranked teams Illinois Wesleyan, Hardin-Simmons, Oglethorpe, Otterbein, McMurry and Mt. Holyoke.

The Gators cruised through the remainder of the spring season, including winning back-to-back matches to cap the regular season. Allegheny was relegated to sit and wait for the national bid to come, as only two teams in each of the five regions get a bid to the championships. Monday, May 1 the call came to Groff, and his team was going to the national meet.

“I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of many great teams at Allegheny in my 21 years, and if I coach for another 21 years, the call that I got on that Monday afternoon will still be one of my top memories here,” noted Groff.

The first day was a struggle for nearly every team in the field, as the Gators ended in ninth place with a 71-over 363, three strokes behind Hardin-Simmons and four behind Illinois Wesleyan. The Gators were unable to move out of their ninth spot over the final three rounds, finishing with a four-day total of 1,418, shooting increasingly lower rounds over each of the first three days.

“Advancing to Nationals with such a young team was a learning experience for everyone, and I hope we can use that to continue to improve ourselves and become a strong and vibrant program,” commented the head coach.

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