Zags Ready to get WCC Championships Underway
4/13/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
WCC Championship Central | Live Stats
SPOKANE, Wash.—After eight regular season events, the Gonzaga University women's golf team now turns its attention to the West Coast Conference Championship, held Monday, April 13 through Wednesday, April 15 at Saticoy Country Club in Somis, Calif.
Gonzaga heads south for the WCC championships after enjoying two years of second-place finishes at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash. The Zags were conference runners-up in both 2013 and 2014, and Alice Kim has especially good memories of Gold Mountain after winning the individual title in 2014. The then-junior won the tournament at even-par 216, edging three others by three strokes. The Zags aren't focusing on replicating the past, however, as they'll head a new course and a different part of the country for this year's edition of the tournament.
"Last year seems like a million years ago to me," said GU head coach Brad Rickel. "Most of our team returns to the tournament, but it's at a different golf course at a different location and a different type of golf course with different weather. In the end, the team is very experienced in the conference championship and they won't get too worked up about it."
This year, the conference tournament takes the Bulldogs to Somis, Calif., and Saticoy Country Club. While the Zags have not yet played a tournament round on the course, they managed to get in a practice round before the UC Irvine Invitational in February in addition to the typical day-before practice round on Sunday. Rickel thinks the loop will certainly be a test of the Bulldogs' mental mettle.
"It's a championship golf course; that's the first thing I noticed when we started playing it," Rickel said of Saticoy. "You can tell the course is incredibly well-designed and well-bunkered, and the greens are sloped and slick. It will demand that the team thinks before each stroke. That's how we will approach everything: we will think it out a bit."
Rickel will send out the same lineup that played in GU's last tournament, the Anuenue Spring Break Classic in Kapalua, Hawaii. Kim heads up the order, and Ciera Min follows. Kim and Min have made up the Zags' one-two punch this spring. A senior, Kim has averaged 72.91 strokes around during the four spring tournaments, finishing a season-best T-10 at the Bay Area Intercollegiate March 9-10. Min, meanwhile, leads the team with a 73.59 stroke average throughout the entire year. She's finished in the top 25 during seven of the eight tournaments this season, reaching the top 10 three times.
Freshman Dania Uy is third in the lineup, followed by Raychelle Santos, a junior. Uy averages 75.68 strokes a round and has three top-25 finishes during her first year of collegiate golf. Her highest finish came Sept. 15-16 at the Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invite hosted by New Mexico. Santos, meanwhile, has the Zags' best finish on the year, opening the season by tying for third at the Ptarmigan Ram Classic. She's posted two other top-10 finishes, but neither came in a spring tournament.
Senior Han Wu rounds out the GU lineup. Wu's play has picked up during the spring. She's averaged 75.5 strokes a round since the turn of the calendar and picked up two top-15 finishes. She tied for ninth at the Anuenue Spring Break Classic with a count of 219 strokes (+3), her best score in relation to par this season.
Gonzaga hasn't played a tournament round in nearly three weeks as the tournament in Hawaii wrapped up 19 days ago on March 25. The Bulldogs used part of that break to rest and catch up with school, but they've been going hard to prepare for the conference tournament for the last week and a half.
"We've probably had the most practice in the last 10 days than any other 10-day span this year," said Rickel. "Now that we've practiced a ton, we know where are our strengths and weaknesses are and we're really refreshed and ready to go. We feel like this is the week we break through and play our best golf."
Gonzaga's tee times for the WCC Championships will begin at 9:15 off hole No. 1. Wu will be the first Bulldog out on the course, and Kim will be the last with a tee time of 9:59. For the first day of competition, the Zags will be paired with golfers from BYU and Pepperdine.
