Golf team ready for NEC Championships

Golf team ready for NEC Championships

By Brian Farrell, QBSN Staff Writer

The weather in Hamden is frightful, but the weather in Daytona Beach is absolutely delightful.

John O’Connor’s squad is used to playing in sub-par conditions, no pun intended, so playing in such beautiful weather will actually be a change of pace for the Quinnipiac women’s golf team when it travels to Florida this weekend for the Northeast Conference Championships.

While the last two tournaments have not gone exactly the way the Bobcats would have liked, the team is making changes for the biggest tournament of the season.

courtesy: quinnipiacbobcats.com

“We had a lot of putts,” O’Connor said referencing the team’s play at the Roar-EE Invitational and Hartford Invitational. “What we want to do is cut down on our three putts. Three putts are something we still encounter and it’s something that we should never see, but we still do.”

“It’s tough at this time of the year to practice putting because the greens change week to week,” O’Connor said. “The grass is starting to grow better, the greens are faster, [and] you are up against a difference situation every week.”

Ever changing conditions will certainly be a challenge this week at the LPGA International at Daytona Beach with temperatures projected to be more than 30 degrees higher than in Hamden.

“They’re walking 72 holes in four days in 80 plus degree intense heat,” O’Connor said. “Eighty-four might not seem all that hot, but it’s sun on you all the time. You’ve got to be concerned with staying hydrated.”

Yet despite the weather projections, O’Connor is pleased with how the team has improved since its last tournament back on April 17.

“I would think we should play pretty well down there,” O’Connor said.  “Our short game has improved and for the most part our putting has improved.”

As always the team will look to junior Kayla Ketcheson to lead. Ketcheson recently changed drivers after O’Connor noticed some issues with the flight of her ball earlier this season.

 “She was using a driver where the loft was too high,” O’Connor said. “When we were at Brown … with the wind being so severe [and] the flight of her ball being too high cost her some distance. We now have her with a driver with a 10 ½ degree loft whereas her last driver was about a 14 degree loft.”

Joining Ketcheson this weekend will be Amanda Nagel, Nicole Ferretti, Jen Forlenza, and most notably, freshman Hannah Russell.

Russell is the Bobcats’ No. 2 golfer and will make her return this weekend after missing the last two invitationals due to an injury.

Nagel and Forlenza will provide the veteran leadership as they are the only two golfers for Quinnipiac that participated in last year’s NEC Championship.

 “We want record low rounds for everybody,” O’Connor said calmly. “This is what we’ve worked for all year long and I expect all the scores to be better than they have been.”

Being the hands on coach that O’Connor is, analysis of each day will be critical to overall tournament success.

“We will track greens in regulations, fairways hit, and number of putts and those are the three things that we will key in on this weekend.”

The tournament will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday, and you can follow Live Stats at www.quinnipiacbobcats.com