Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Women's Golf tees off at the Minnesota Invitational
09/15/2005 | 12:00:00 | Women's Golf
Sept. 15, 2005
By Lacole Hook
www.siusalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois Women's Golf team tees off this weekend at the Minnesota Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota. The 12-team tournament in Minneapolis consists of 54 holes, 36 holes on Saturday followed by 18 on Sunday.
This is the first tournament for the Salukis, who are getting a little bit of a late start on the season. Usually the Salukis begin their season a week earlier at the Illinois State tournament, but after 30 years that tournament was cancelled, forcing the Salukis to practice for an extra week.
While the extra practice can be nice, Coach Diane Daugherty said the team is ready for the season.
"We are tired of coming out here and playing just ourselves," Daugherty said. "I think we are ready to tee it up for it to count."
Daugherty thinks the Minnesota tournament will be a great place to get the season started.
"This is the first time any of these players have been to Minnesota," Daugherty said. "I feel good about the golf course and I think we are ready to play. The weather is supposed to be great up there which will be a nice way to begin the season."
An inter-squad tournament determined who qualified for the first two tournaments of the season. Daugherty said qualifying for the tournaments this season may be more challenging than the tournaments themselves.
"It was a hard-fought qualifying tournament," Daugherty said. "We played 54 holes and it was very close."
The golfers that will be competing this weekend at the Les Bolstad Golf Course are Natalie Parker (Jr.), Samantha Sutzer (Jr.), Josie Lowder (Jr.), Braidy Hood (Fr.) and Christine Zoerlein (So.).
Junior Co-captain Parker is looking forward to the start of the season.
"We are all excited to go to a tournament," Parker said. "We just want competition and to go perform. We want to see what we can do and what we need to work on. This will show us what we need to step up for the rest of the season."
Teams competing in the Minnesota Invitational include: University of Minnesota, Bradley, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Northern Iowa, Missouri-Kansas City, Eastern Washington, Creighton, Missouri State, North Dakota and Gustavus Adolphus.
