Where Have I Been?!?!

I can't believe that I haven't been keeping up with the blog very well! We have been so busy with our Spring schedule that I just honestly haven't made it a priority.

We have possibly one tournament left this Spring: the 2010 Mid American Conference Championship. We will travel to Fishers, Indiana next Wednesday. We'll play a practice round Thursday morning at Hawthorns G. C. C. and the tournament will be Friday-Sunday. If you are intersted, please feel free to travel to Fishers! Or if you can't make it, please follow us on LIVE SCORING on http://www.golfstat.com/!! The tournament is going to be highly competitive. Kent State will enter as the favorite as they are ranked 30th in the country right now. Ball State and Eastern Michigan are ranked in the top 100 and then you have us, Toledo, and Western Michigan that can make a move as well. If we win MACs we will continue our season into post season play! The girls are ready to take everyone on...

What I like about this year's MAC Championship is that there really is no clear favorite. I think it is anyone's game! It should be exciting to see which teams survive down the stretch and overcome the pressure. We played this course well in the Fall and what gets me excited is that we are currently playing great this Spring!! We are really working hard in practice and should have great confidence heading into this year's championship!

I'll do better keeping you posted from here on out. I'll also be pointing out some highlights from our Spring in the next few days!

GO ZIPS!!

4 More Days and We Head South!

I really can't believe how quickly these past two months have flown by! We've been doing all we can to prepare for our first tournament of the Spring. The struggle with the weather has been difficult to deal with, but with our indoor facility, we've had the advantage of being able to practice no matter what is going on outside! This time of year presents other struggles as well...dealing with swing fundamentals, swing changes, and just being out of sink with swing and tempo are common early in the year, but I see them all overcoming those one day at a time.

The big thing we will have to deal with going into our first tournament is trust. Will we trust our swings? Will we be able to commit to the target or the shot at hand? Will we have enough trust to have confidence in that shot? Those will be big questions. I have no doubt in my mind that the team will be able to hit the great shots that they need, but the mental part of it is so tough this time of year. My job will be to ensure we go into the tournament as prepared as possible and relaxed. Of course we have a goal for ourselves, but we our expectations can't be extremely high or we will play too tight. This is the perfect opportunity to look at this tournament as a great way to start our quest for a MAC Championship at the end of April. We will have a great chance to play OUTSIDE on excellent golf courses.

No matter what our finish will be...I'm grateful we have this opportunity to travel the country to play golf and have the chance to get our games more in tune for the next tournament. Student-athletes have a great life, but I think golfers have it the best :)!!

Guest Blogger---Sophomore Katie Jenior

This week has been going pretty well so far. I started off the week with a team Super Bowl party at Tyler and Amanda’s apartment. It was a lot of fun! We all got together to watch the game with the team and the boyfriends, Amanda made great food including pigs-in-a-blanket, pizza, cheese and crackers, and chicken wings, and we just all hung out and had a great time. And since the Super bowl was at an earlier time this year, we still all made it home in time to get enough sleep for workouts the next morning.

As the week went on, most of us attended our classes even through the cold weather and heavy snow. Some people were sick though so they were unable to attend a couple classes. Now, everyone is healthy and ready to go! =)

Now we have come to the middle of the week which is my favorite day… Wednesday! Every Wednesday night, I love to go line dancing at the Dusty Armadillo. Line dancing is a huge hobby of mine and has been for a couple years now. It’s one of my fun nights where I can get away from school work and everything and just have fun with my friends.

As far as the golfing goes, we have been inching into harder practices trying to nail everything down. Our first tournament is next weekend so we have been working really hard and trying to get our games back to top notch. The team is looking great and everyone has been very dedicated. However, the thing we have been working on the most has been chipping. We have been working on bump-and-run drills and bucket drills every day. We also made a game out of it. Whoever gets 3 balls into the bucket first is the winner. I, Katie Jenior, have defeated Amanda Butler! This is just a fun way to keep practicing interesting and keeps the competition flowing. We will be finishing up our Short Game Boot Camp this week as well as hitting outside tomorrow (Friday). We will be traveling to Hackers, which is Firestone’s public driving range. We cannot really hit on the course yet seeing how the weather has not been treating us very well. But that doesn’t stop us!

Wish us luck and cheer for us in our first tournament!

Go Zips! Katie Jenior

Guest Blogger--Women's Golfer Amanda Butler

This week has gone by so fast…Overall it has been a great week! It started off pretty hectic because I was sick last week so I had to get caught up. My classes this semester are really enjoyable; I’m pretty much done with all my general ed. classes so I'm starting to get to take classes that are related to my major.

I am really looking forward to the start of season. I think the whole team is ready to get back in the flow of things and travel to all the amazing places. We only have 15 days till we leave for our first tournament!!! Our team is so fortunate to have an indoor facility we can practice at during the winter months. Today some of my teammates and I had a contest going and I would like to announce that ”I BEAT KATIE” haha!! We were hitting shots at a bucket that was about 25 yards away but the catch was that the bucket was 12 inches in diameter so it made it challenging. An hour later I finally made the shot and we all moved on to different drills, knowing that tomorrow the same competition would begin.

This week I feel that as a team, we have grown closer together. I know that through thick and thin my teammates will always have my back as I will always have theirs. Team unity is a main component of success. We always laugh and have fun with each other which makes time on and off the course worthwhile. I have establish a team circle, which means that we trust, support and motivate each other no matter what the situation may be. Since the first day I met my team and my coach, we have all become very close friends and we are becoming more comfortable with each other every day.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”-Andrew Carnegie

GO ZIPS!!Amanda Butler

Golf Tip Tuesday--Happy "Groundhog Day"!!

Happy Groundhog Day to all! I believe our little groundhog is predicting 6 more weeks of winter, but maybe he'll be wrong this time!

This day always reminds me of the movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray. Bill Murray's character as a tv weatherman, hated his latest assignment to cover the Groundhog Day events in Punxsutawney and because of this he found himself repeating the same day over and over again! I love this movie, but it also makes me think of golf (just like everything almost!).

Repeating a day over and over again might not be ideal. Some days just need to be done, but sometimes we would all love that second chance! Repetition in certain aspects of the game are very important. For example...you would really want a preshot routine that repeats itself before you hit every single shot on the golf course. Repetition with your preshot routine is a must. It gets you in the zone before hitting your shot. It can relax you and ease your mind when you are familiar with your routine.

I highly recommend paying attention to the pros on tv before they hit a shot. Learn something from their preshot routine. Also, a book that is perfect for this would be "Every Shot Must Have a Purpose" by Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott. It suggest many useful techniques for the preshot routine and also your thought process before each shot.

So, remember to fine tune your preshot routine and make it the exact same every time. A comfortable, repetitive preshot routine will help you eliminate repetitively bad scores!

Golf Tip Tuesday--Damage Control on the Golf Course

We all strive for perfection in the game of golf. But let's face it, perfection in golf will be a never ending pursuit, so mistakes will happen. The best players in the world hit errant shots even. So damage control is highly important in golf. Since we know we can't prevent bad shots from happening, damage control prevents further mistakes from those bad shots. How many of us play 14-16 great golf holes and have those 2-3 holes with large numbers? If you saved 2-5 strokes per round from those big number holes, how different would your handicap or golf game be?

Follow these steps to prevent those big numbers from happening:

1. Assess the situation:

--Check your lie. Is it a good or bad lie? Anticipate and imagine to the best of your ability the ball's reaction after you hit it. This will determine what type of club you should hit. If it is buried or nestled, take a club with more loft. If you have a lie that isn't too bad, then you can use whatever club the shot calls for.

--Check the scene. Where are you first of all? What is near you? Tree limbs hanging high, low? Hazards near? There are many things you should look at when you are in a trouble area.

--After checking the scene, think about your target. What possible shot can you hit when you look at each different target? Sometimes the flag is not always the best place to aim at. Where is your safest landing area? Maybe your best way out is backwards!! We hate that option, so it's hardly ever used, but it could possibly be your best bet!

2. Plan your shot:

--What type of shot should you hit? Does it need to be high or low? Short distance or middle distance? Most important...have you hit the shot that you need before? If the answer is no, then it might be a shot you shouldn't attempt.

--What type of swing do you need? This might depend on obstacles in the area that will affect your swing. This might depend on the type of ball flight you need to curve it around obstacles that are in front of you. A big key in getting out of any trouble with obstacles around you is that you almost never use a standard normal swing in these situations. You have to create and improvise sometimes very dramatically to even get the club on the ball! Don't let what your swing might look like hold you back from getting yourself out of trouble!

3. Practice the trick shots:

--Many times when we are playing by ourselves or playing in a practice round, we tend to take the ball out of the trees and throw it in the fairway or take our ball out of a buried lie in the bunker or rough and set it up on a nice piece of grass or even rake a better lie. Experiment with these and give yourself some extra practice. Preparation is the key. The main reason we are not good at getting out of trouble is because we never practice it!

It is simple...damage control is all about playing the percentages. What are the percentages of you pulling the risky, miracle shot off? What are the percentages of staying out of further trouble if you aim a more forgiving target where you know you'll get a good lie as opposed to aiming at the flag with giant trees in your way?

For more detailed information, I highly recommend the book "Damage Control" by Dave Pelz. Play the forgiving percentages and you'll be surprised at the shots that you cut from your score. This is an important tip when you're first getting back on the course after that long winter's break! Good luck!

Guest Blogger--Women's Golfer Hanna Ek on her First Two Weeks of School

Everything went well on the morning of January 10. We left my home town early in the morning and dodged the bad traffic on our way to the airport. However, my flight from Arlanda, Sweden, was delayed and the only thing I could do was to keep my fingers crossed. I was lucky this time. After sprinting through the airport in Köpenhamn, I made it on time for my transatlantic flight! I was so excited!

The plane was packed. I got to sit beside a sneezing, coughing man who blew his nose every ten minutes all the way to Washington DC. Lovely. But at least I was on the flight! We arrived early to Washington so I had plenty of time before the boarding for my flight to Cleveland would start. However, the flight from Köpenhamn was not the only international flight arriving at the same time in Washington. Immigration was a nightmare. It took me more than two hours to get through and I was running out of time. My only option was to run. Again! I made it to the final call! I was tired and I could barely keep my eyes open when I boarded my third and last flight for the day.

In Cleveland, my Coach and her husband picked me up, but unfortunately my luggage didn’t make it. I was really annoyed, but with classes starting the next morning I just wanted to get back to my apartment.

I got my luggage the next day. I unpacked, I went to my meetings, I practiced and worked out, and I ran back and forth with papers. Back to reality. When Friday came I was tired and I wasn’t feeling well. I had felt something in my throat the entire week but it wasn’t too bad, at least not at first. When I woke up on Saturday, I knew something was wrong. I got worse and worse throughout the day and I went to bed early. I was hoping to be able to sleep it away. The night between Saturday and Sunday was horrible. I had a very high fever and my bed turned into a pool of sweat. Lovely. To try to swallow was not an option; I could not even get water down because my throat was too swollen.

I had to go to the hospital the next day. I got an injection, some steroids, and penicillin. I’m still taking the penicillin and the only thing I have been able to eat for the past five days is yogurt. My throat is still swollen and I’m exhausted, but I feel a lot better than I did a few days ago. Hopefully I’ve had my share of illness this semester. From now on, things can only get better!

Go Zips!!--Hanna Ek