Ball State finished 11th out of 16 teams in the Spring Break Shootout at Lake Jovita Golf and Country Club in Dade City, Florida.
The Ball State’s five-person lineup consisted of junior Kiah Parrott, freshman Sarah Gallagher, freshman Jasmine Driscoll, freshman Madelin Boyd and sophomore Payton Bennett.
Three other Mid-American Conference (MAC) schools were in the shootout, Toledo, Ohio and Akron. The Cardinals beat Ohio and Akron but finished five strokes behind Toledo.
“It's not it's not your typical Florida course,” head coach Cameron Andry said. “It's got some elevation changes and a lot of big old cypress trees. It's kind of a unique layout compared to other Florida golf courses, so that’s a lot of fun. It is a really, really good golf course.”
Monday - Round One
The top four scoring scores were all within a range of 3-over-par and 7-over-par, a recurring event to happen this year, being all consistent scores.
“I think it would be great if the cluster was shooting a little bit lower scores, obviously, but it's not a bad thing, either,” Andry said. “At least those top four have all been really, really close for all these first three tournaments of the spring.”
Andry said Parrott has been frustrated with not being able to break an under-par round so far this spring season as she did in the fall. He also said that by cleaning up a few mistakes he thinks they can get scores in the lower to mid-70s.
Gallagher led round one with her 3-over-par score of 74, she had 14 pars in her first 18 holes of action.
Driscoll came in with a 4-over-par 75 and was followed by Parrott who posted a 5-over-par 76.
Boyd shot a 7-over-par 78 and the Cardinals were rounded out with Bennett who posted a 13-over-par 84
Monday - Round Two
Right after the first round, it would be much the same with scoring, the lowest round dropped to 1-over-par and the highest of the five players was 7-over-par.
Boyd dropped six stokes between her first and second rounds, posting the lowest score of the team with a 1-over-par 72. In her round she had three birdies.
“Part of it was she did not have a great feel of the greens and so her putting was not great the first round and really probably the first maybe nine holes of the first rounds,” Andry said. “She settled in and she kind of found a groove. It's one of the things I like about 36 whole days. I mean, they're obviously really long days, but you do have the opportunity to find your rhythm and she did that.”
Andry also said a reason for her performance in the second round was hitting the driver well and being able to put herself in positions to make easy tap-in pars.
The second best was Parrott who posted a 5-over-par 76 and was followed by Driscoll who shot a 6-over-par 77.
The final two Cardinals were Gallagher and Bennett who both shot a round of 7-over-par 78.
Tuesday - Round Three
Driscoll led the Cardinals in the round with a score of a 4-over-par 75. On her scorecard, the most magical thing for a golfer appeared. The magical number 1.
Even though Andry was not there for the actual hole-in-one, while wishing he was, he said he has got it told from many perspectives.
“She had a little eight iron and kind of slung it in there with a draw, which is what she's playing right now,” Andry said. “I don't think you're ever getting up there [on the tee box] thinking it's gonna be a hole-in-one, she put a good swing on it. The greens have got some slopes on them that you can use to your advantage. We've talked about that in the practice round when we saw where the day two hole location was that it slopes back there, kind of funnel the ball towards the hole if you get it in the right spot, and that's what she did.”
Andry said Driscoll is a player who doesn’t get worked up or too excited, even after her first hole-in-one he said he did not get all that excited.
Parrott was second-best with a 5-over-par 76. Gallagher and Boyd both posted a 6-over-par 77 and were followed by Bennett who shot a 9-over-par 80.
The Cardinals will head down to Richmond Kentucky for the EKU Colonel Classic at the University Club at Arlington on Apr. 3-4.
After being in Flordia for the past week, Andry plans to let the players get back for a little bit of rest and to catch up on some schoolwork. Next week will hit the ground running and figure out what they are going to do qualifying-wise.
“I think for those top four just continuing to talk about them strategically and mentally, what are some of the mistakes that we're making and how can we clean those up,” Andry said. “Each one of them probably has different things that they need to work on, like the physical aspects of their games. We'll look at the statistics and figure it out for each one of them and go to work.”
Contact Elijah Poe with comments at elijah.poe@bsu.edu or on Twitter @ElijahPoe4.
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