Women's Golf Looks To Keep Early-Season Momentum Going
9/24/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
SPOKANE, Wash. - Impressed with his team's first outing of the season, Gonzaga University head women's golf coach Brad Rickel is hoping the Bulldogs can keep things going in a positive manner Monday and Tuesday at the Cougar Cup hosted by Washington State University.
The 54-hole tournament will be played at Palouse Ridge Golf Course and play to a par 73 and 6,200 yards. The teams are slated to tee off at 8:30 a.m. for Monday's 36 holes and for Tuesday's 18-hole finale.
"We're excited to get going to our second tournament. We had a good experience at our first one and set some team records. I think all of us feel we have more to prove still. The last couple of years I don't think we've played to our potential at Washington State. That's the theme of the week; we cannot have a letdown after having such a good golf tournament. We have to show up and realize we have to prove it again," Rickel said.
The Bulldogs opened at the Oregon State Invitational last week in Corvallis, Ore., and got some solid play throughout, but none more so than from the exceptional final day of freshman Raychelle Santos. She shot a 3-under par 67 to tie teammate Victoria Fallgren's single-round school record, and Santos had a 54-hole score of 215 to also break Fallgren's record of 217. Gonzaga set a team record with its 54-hole score of 891 as the Bulldogs finished third.
Rickel's five-person team won't change this week although he has juggled the order a little. Fallgren will remain at No. 1, Santos will move up to No. 2, Alice Kim is at No. 3, Genavive 'Genna' Dodge is at No. 4 and Tai Jade 'TJ' Kliebphipat will be at No. 5. Han Wu and freshman Angela de Villa will play as individuals, de Villa making her collegiate debut.
Although Santos actually won the No. 1 spot in qualifying prior to Oregon State and paced the team last week, Rickel is leaving his senior veteran at the top.
"Victoria is our most experienced golfer and has accomplished the most over a career than anybody has done here. We're going to keep her at No. 1 and let her be our leader. Raychelle has shown she can flat out golf her ball. We're trying to make sure everybody knows the number next to your name is not as important as the number on your scorecard," Rickel said.
Santos' effort a week ago actually overshadowed a strong performance from Fallgren, whose 54-hole score of 218 was only one off her school record Santos broke.
"Victoria was so solid and played such good golf, but Raychelle just had one of those great rounds the final day and was so fun to see. It doesn't minimize what Victoria did. She just kept fighting and making pars and I was very impressed by how she played the tournament," Rickel noted of the most decorated player in Gonzaga women's golf history.
Rickel thinks Santos will only continue to get better.
"Raychelle is the highest ranked player I've ever signed at Gonzaga. She is just a great golfer. She doesn't put herself in trouble, goes about her business, keeps a great mood; so no, I'm not surprised at what she did. I'm really happy for her. I hope this motivates her even more," Rickel said. "She worked incredibly hard to be ready for the beginning of the season. I'm happy it paid off for her right out of the shoot. Golf doesn't always pay you back immediately by hard work, but she got paid back so I'm happy for her."
Kliebphipat, a junior, had a tough opening week, but Rickel hasn't lost confidence in her or her game.
"TJ had sort of a rough ball-striking week. She just had two misses going right and left. She just didn't have as much control of her golf ball. I know she worked real hard in practice this week to find it," he said.
Rickel also expects his freshmen to handle the grind of two tough back-to-back tournaments in stride.
"I think the freshmen will be fine. They are probably a little bit bewildered with school, travel and golf. If we had three weeks in a row it would probably catch up with them. This trip is only three days and not four so that helps a little bit. They'll be fine. They are both excited to play tournament golf," Rickel said of his two newcomers.
A strong field will compete in the Cougar Cup, led by Pacific-12 Conference power University of California which finished 10th in last year's Golfweek poll and 14th in the final Golfstat rankings.
"California will be there and they are always one of the top teams in the country for the last decade," Rickel said. "WSU showed they are really good last week at Oregon State (finishing second to the University of Washington). BYU and Santa Clara from the West Coast Conference will be there so we'll get a look at a couple of teams in our conference. There's a sprinkling of teams we haven't seen yet who are all good teams. It's hard to know who will be great starting out the year because we haven't played most of these teams yet."
