WMU Golf looking for a productive spring

After a successful fall 2022 golf season, the Western Michigan University women’s team kicks off the spring season on Monday and Tuesday with the Falcon Florida Classic at Lakewood Ranch, Fla.

However..

In the back of the mind of the eight players and two coaches of the Broncos squad lurks a little trip to Hawaii during spring break in the first week of March, a trip made possible by the appearance of head coach Kim Moore plus lots of hard work from the team on a golf outing to raise money.

“I don’t think it’s real until we land,” graduate student Alice Fish said with a big smile.

Senior transfer added Natalie Samdal“This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that’s for sure.”

The six-day trip all started because another spring break trip was cancelled. Western Michigan had played in a Florida tournament hosted by Butler last year, but it did not host the tournament this year.

“I tried to enter some other tournaments but they were already full and it’s always good to play during the break because you don’t have school and it’s a good opportunity to play,” said Moore. “I found out that Hawaii was hosting a tournament and we could participate.”

However, raising money would be huge. That’s where Moore’s game came into play. She was invited to play in the four-hole Celebrity Shootout at The Ally Challenge at Warwick Hills in Grand Blanc. The Challenge is a PGA TOUR Champions tournament. Moore was coming up to win the US Adaptive Open Championship. She was paired with world super middleweight boxing champion Anthony Dirrell and country/western singer and award winner Kane Brown. They played against Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin, former Michigan State basketball great Charlie Bell, and former Michigan basketball player Jalen Rose. Jack Nicklaus played for both teams.

Moore’s team won and she donated her share of the scholarship for the trip to Hawaii. The Broncos then also had a good money-raising golf tournament over the summer, which led them to participate in the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational at the Hoakalei Country Club on Ewa Beach on Oahu.

“The nice thing is that all eight members of the team and coaching staff can go,” said Moore. “We have a practice round on Sunday (March 5), then 36 holes on the first day of the tournament (March 6) and 18 holes on the second day (March 7).

“Then we’ll do another excursion before we fly back home.”

The team members are returnees Fish, senior Hayley Barclaysophomore Ally Bart And Madeline Blum and newcomers Samdal and freshmen Jenna Hayes, Megha Vallabhaneni And Kelly White. Moore is the head coach and Tracy Danielwho is the only female athlete from West Michigan to play at Mid-American Conference championships in two different sports, volleyball in 1982 and softball in 1986, is the assistant coach.

The Broncos will play in six invitationals this spring before hosting the MAC Championship on April 21-23 at Kalamazoo Country Club. They will face many MAC teams in those invites, especially the first one which will feature all MAC schools except defending champion Kent State who is currently ranked 20th^e in the nation by Golfstat and 21^st by the Women’s Golf Coaches Association.

“The MAC is going to be tough again this season,” said Moore. It will be good to see the conference teams, because after the fall tournaments the scores may be different.

“You can’t say much about the start of the spring season, but it’s good to see them play to compare and compete against them.”

After finishing tied for second in one fall tournament and third in two other tournaments, the first time since Moore became head coach in November 2020, Western Michigan is looking to make more progress this spring. However, with four of the eight team members new this year, Moore wasn’t sure what to expect last fall.

“It’s very different for the three freshmen to play golf in high school and then go to college,” Moore said. “In the fall I was just happy with what we did because our scoring average was six strokes better than in the fall of 2021.

“We set team goals for last fall and this spring. One of our fall goals was to get a team score of 3.6 points and we finished at 3.9. We wanted to win a few tournaments, which we didn’t, but we broke 300 for a team score twice, which we didn’t do at all last year. In the second round of the Ball State tournament, we shot a 290, our second-lowest team score ever.”

Western Michigan accomplished that feat without Best Player Fish, who had a minor hiccup during team qualifying. Moore has qualifying play for each invitation, with the top five making it to the tournament and the top four scores counting towards the team total.

“I had two bad qualifying rounds and it cost me a tournament,” said Fish. “It’s the first time in my career this has happened.

“I went home for the weekend and the next two days (she has online classes and a 4.0 GPA) and I played a lot of hours of golf and a lot of hours of training, so I felt like I had something to prove after that. Golf can humble you a bit and sometimes you need a reality check.”

At Ball State, Barth led the team with a three-round total of 220. Samdal was next at 224, Barclay at 225, Vallabhenani at 226 and White at 230.

Fish came back first, but lost in a playoff, in the next tournament, with a personal best of 4-under 68 in one of the rounds. WMU placed second as a team. In her two fall tournaments, Fish’s scoring average is a sharp 73.20. In the three tournaments, Vallabhaneni is at 75.63 and Samdal at 76.0.

“We have a lot of young talent and I think that’s what our program needed,” Fish said. “I think seeing our coach’s success this summer is very good and motivates us.”

One of the things that convinced Samdal to move to West Michigan was the team atmosphere.

“The team aspect that is being built here is really excellent, especially as golf is such an individual sport,” she said. “We compete with each other, but at the end of the day we support each other and that is huge in any school.

“When I transitioned here it was something I was looking for, not just being able to push each other, but being genuinely excited when someone else travels over you, when someone is struggling and then they finally pick it up in a qualifier . It’s a great experience.”

The Broncos are also looking for a good experience at this season’s MAC Championships. Last season, WMU finished ninth.

“I think we have a lot of momentum after the fall and we are moving in the right direction, we have the right people, the right skills and talent to perform,” said Fish, the team’s captain. “We just need to bring it all together in one place.”

The MAC Championships and Hawaii would be fun.