OSUWG: Mountain View Intercollegiate
Ken via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
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(Team photo and tournament information courtesy of Ohio State Athletic Department.)
The OSUWG team has reason to smile.
Before we get started, I want to congratulate
Katja Pogacar for being honored as Big Ten Golfer of the Week last week. Well done.
This week the
Ohio State Women’s Golf (OSUWG) team teed it up for the he Mountain View Golf Club in Tuscon, AZ. The course is 6,277 yards long and plays to a par of 72. This is a three round (54 hole) event where the format is ‘play five count four’, where a school fields 5 players, and the low 4 scores for each round are counted. Each school may have a player play as an ‘individual’.
The fifteen team field is comprised of: Colorado State, #7 Georgia, #16 Iowa State, Kansas State, Kennesaw State, #48 Middle Tennessee State, Minnesota, #22 Missouri, New Mexico State,
#44 Ohio State, #43 Purdue, San Jose State, Texas State, UTSA and Wyoming. Six of the fifteen teams are Golfstat Top-50. This is a competitive field.
The five players participating in the team portion for the Buckeyes were:
Katja Pogacar,
Jaclyn Lee, Jessica Porvasnik, Niki Schroeder and Rio Watanabe. Zoe-Beth Brake competed as an individual. After an event off, Rio is back in the starting lineup. This has been pretty much the go-to lineup this Spring.
Overall
Ohio State finished in 7th for the tournament, thanks to another well-balanced team effort in the final round. For the second consecutive event, this was a well managed, all hands aboard team effort, particularly the (relatively) mistake-free 3rd round. The Buckeyes had their best team round of the event on Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to bump them up in the standings. It was one of those days when nearly all the team scores were clustered and it was tough to make a move on your competitors.
For the 2nd straight event, Katja Pogacar had a Top Ten finish. Her 217 (-1) placed her in a tie for 9th position. Congratulations, well done.
Below is the Buckeye round by round scoring:
Par 72 Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Total
Team 292 298 290 880
Katja Pogacar 72 74 71 217
Jessica Porvasnik 74 72 73 219
Rio Watanabe 76 76 70 222
Niki Schroeder 72 76 76 224
Jaclyn Lee 74 76 77 227
Zoe-Beth Brake (I) 77 76 73 226
1st Round
The Buckeyes opened play with a team score of 292 (+4), placing them in 6th position. The Buckeyes were led by
Katja Pogacar and
Niki Schroeder with both players shooting 72 (E).
Jessica Porvasnik and
Jaclyn Lee each shot 74’s (+2). Returning to the lineup,
Rio Watanabe shot a 76 (+4). In the Individual category,
Zoe-Beth Brake had a fairly steady round of 77 (+5).
Katja began her round on the 10th hole and strung together 7 consecutive pars before bogeying the next two holes. She finished with a strong with 3 birdies to give her -2 on the back nine and her even par round.
Niki began her round on the par-5 11th hole with a birdie
(always a good way to start a round), and stood at -2 (!) through 12 holes of play until a triple bogey 7 put the brakes on her round. However, she did birdie the next hole and finished even par for the day. Niki’s 4 birdies tied for the team lead for the round. If not for the 5th hole…
Jessica also began her round on the 11th hole. She bogeyed two of her first four holes, then settled into her rhythm with 3 birdies, 3 bogies and 6 pars to complete her round of +2.
Jaclyn began her round on the 10th hole and, like Niki, played 17 solid holes of opening round golf. She recorded 2 birdies and 14 pars, but was tripped up with a triple bogey 8 on the par-5 5th hole.
Rio began her round on the par-4 12th hole. It was an uneven round; running consecutive bogeys interspersed with birdies. However, she did stabilize her round by playing her last 7 holes in 1-under par.
Zoe-Beth began her round on the 16th hole. Although she didn’t record a birdie, and tripped over a double bogey, her round was steady with 14 pars.
As you might also expect from this first round, the
team play was comprised of some bogeys (18), a good many pars (54), a lot of birdies (16) and, unfortunately, two triple bogeys.
That took care of a pretty solid first round for the Buckeyes. It featured a lot of birdies/pars and very few (2) “uh-oh” holes. The encouraging aspect was this was a well managed round of team golf. Now, on to the afternoon round…
2nd Round
In the opening day’s afternoon round the Buckeyes unfortunately couldn’t get anything going in their early holes of play. They shot a team score of 298 (+10) that dropped them from a spot to 7th position. The Buckeyes were led by
Jessica Porvasnik 72 (E) and
Katja Pogacar 74 (+2).
Jaclyn Lee,
Niki Schroeder and
Rio Watanabe all shot
76 (4). In individual competition,
Zoe-Beth Brake shot a 76 (+4).
For the afternoon round, the players had the same pairings and the same starting holes as the 1st round.
Jaclyn had a solid +1 though 9 holes, stumbled with three consecutive bogeys, then righted her ship by closing with six consecutive pars.
Jessica started slowly with bogeys on her three of her first five holes, then played her next 13 holes in 3-under par. Interestingly, this is how she played her 2nd round in her previous tournament. After a slow start a very good finish.
Niki couldn’t get any traction, bogeying two of her first five holes, strung together four pars, then bogeyed three of the next four holes. However, she did close strongly by playing her final four holes in 1-under par.
Katja rolled along by playing her first 10 holes in +1 to par. She bogeyed two of her next three holes, but closed her final five holes in a well played 1-under par.
Rio had a fairly uneventful round with 5 bogeys. However, she was the only
team player to record a birdie on holes #10-#18. Despite a slow start, she did finish her last 12 holes in +1.
Zoe-Beth had an interesting round. She started her round birdie/bogey, then double bogeyed two of her next five holes. She closed her round by playing her final 11 holes in even par. Even though she was the only Buckeye on the course to have double bogey on her card, she also was the only one to have 3 birdies. Nothing bland about her game, at all.
As you might guess, the
team play was comprised of quite a few bogeys (21), a
lot of pars (62) and few birdies (7). There were no scores higher than bogey, so although the birdies weren’t there, this was a clean round for the Buckeyes.
A good morning round, a so-so afternoon round. Day one is in the books.
3rd Round
This round started much better than the previous round. Within the first two hours (or so) of play, he Buckeyes already had more birdies (9) than their entire 2nd round. The ‘birdie machine’ slipped a gear during the following two hours (or so) and OSU could record only 4 more birdies. But, they (Rio) get trap an eagle. Ohio State’s round of 298 (+18) kept them in 7th place. The Buckeyes were led by
Rio Watanabe 70 (-2) and
Katja Pogacar 71 (-1).
Jessica Porvasnik shot a 73 (+1) and
Niki Schroeder 76 (+4) to complete the team scoring.
Jaclyn Lee rounded out the day with a 77 (+5).
Zoe-Beth shot a 73 (+1) in Individual play.
The 3rd round had stretches of streaks:
Jaclyn could not get untracked on Saturday. She bogeyed 4 of her 7 opening holes and closed with bogies on 3 of her last 4 holes. She did have a mid-round stretch of 7 holes where she was -2.
Jessica was -1 through her first five holes, had a four hole flurry where she was +2, then settled in to complete her last nine hole in even par, highlighted by a birdie on her last hole, for her score of one over par.
Niki was +1 after her first 6 holes, played her next 6 holes in even par, but bogeyed 3 of her final 6 holes.
Katja was -1 after her first 5 holes, then scored 2 more birdies and 2 bogeys to finish at 1 under par.
Rio seemingly made good use of her week off by absolutely lighting up her closing stretch of holes. She was even par through 12 holes, then played her closing 6 holes in -2, punctuated by an
eagle 2 on the par-4 7th hole (her 17th hole of the day)
Zoe-Beth had an interesting feel to it. She began her round with 6 consecutive pars. So far, so good. She then played her next 5 holes in one over par, without scoring a par. In that stretch, she had back-to-back birdies, then back-to-back bogeys. If you want excitement, follow Zoe-Beth around the course.
The third round
team play was comprised of a few birdies (13), a good many pars (55), a several bogeys (22) and an eagle.
Thoughts
This tournament featured a well-played opening round, a second round that drifted up a bit, and a very well played closing round. Most of the teams (11 of the 15) scored higher in the 2nd round than the first. In the final round, 8 of 15 teams scored better than in their second round. Ohio State’s final round score (+2) was 4th best.
Sifting through the chaff, here is a “what happened” snap-shot. They played the par 3’s relatively not-so-hot, scoring an average of 3.30 strokes per hole, a total of +18 to par; ranking them 13th of the 15 teams. They played the par 4’s very well, to an average of 4.09 per hole, +13 to par, ranking them T-4th. In a pleasant turn, they played the par 5’s to an average of 4.97, -2 to par, ranking them 4th. For their third consecutive tournament, they’ve played the par-4’s really well. They improved their par-5 scoring significantly.
In terms of
team play “to par” scoring, Ohio State recorded 170 pars, ranking them 11th. They recorded 36 birdies, placing them T-4th and they recorded one (Rio) eagle. This is the third consecutive tournament where the Buckeyes have played quite well in terms of recording pars and
very well in birdie scoring. The Buckeyes are trending in the right direction.
Rio, and the team seemed to benefit from her week off. After two opening rounds in he mid-70’s, she kicked her game into gear with a team best 70 (-2) to lead OSU’s best round of the tournament. Well done.
Up Next
The team next tees it up April 3rd-5th in Napa, CA for the Silverado Showdown. I hope they take some time to schedule a winery tour.
Go Buckeyes!
Swing Thoughts
While I was waiting for the 3rd round to be completed, I ran across this photo from the Ohio State women’s golf web site. I just want to point out a couple of things. First, notice the full arm extension; this is a free-wheeling swing. Second, look at the position of the right hand; it is fully released, but not ‘over-released’ (the back of the hand is vertical, not “on top” of the club. Third, the body rotation; the right shoulder has rotated under her head and (likely) still on-plane from her take-away. Finally, her hips have already cleared (opened up to face the target), allowing the upper body/arms to accelerate through impact.
This is a
very good swing.
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