It was a quiet van ride back home from the Schenkel Invitational last March. University of Alabama Birmingham players piled in the van after the practice round in Statesboro, Georgia, on March 18, having just received the phone call that they needed to return to Birmingham right away in the face of a spreading coronavirus pandemic. Understandably, no one had much to say.
“We get in the van and we’re thinking, I wonder how long we’ll be shut down?” said head coach Mike Wilson.
They never played again.
UAB was ranked No. 46 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings when the season went kaput. Six months later, UAB is headlining men’s college golf, having won its first two fall starts and compiled a 20-0 head-to-head record to begin the fall season. UAB hasn’t logged back-to-back tournament wins since 1996.
After going 21 under for 54 holes to win the Jim Rivers Intercollegiate, it was a rough start the next week at the Honors Course, a past NCAA Championship venue and host of several USGA events, for the Scenic City Collegiate. The Blazers were 14 over after six holes but ended that day 8 over. No other team shot under par in the final round, and UAB won by six.
“It’s just been a rollercoaster of emotions,” Wilson said of the past few months.
BACK-TO-BACK CHAMPS‼️
UAB wins it’s second tournament in a row to open the 2020-21 season by claiming the title at the Scenic City Collegiate in Chattanooga!#WinAsOne pic.twitter.com/phD9ZLzcOs
— UAB Men's Golf (@UAB_MGOLF) September 22, 2020
Like most coaches, he spent his summer on the phone.
“Every conference was canceling, canceling, canceling,” he said. “Our AD in Conference USA was really wanting to play. UAB, being a medical school, felt they could meet the needs to keep it as safe as possible. I bet my schedule has changed at least 15 times.”
UAB players must pass a COVID test 72 hours before playing an event. Teams playing the Blazers’ home event, the Graeme McDowell Invitational, next week at Greystone must abide by the same protocols.
Once you get on the golf course, Wilson acknowledged, this whole thing feels more normal. When the rankings are run for the first time this fall, UAB is likely going to be at the top. It’s a nice feeling being No. 1, but Wilson said his team is mostly focused on the next event.
What strikes Wilson most about this squad is the sense of team.
“That’s the characteristic that I’ve really seen with these guys,” he said. “From top to bottom, they all pull for each other to do well. And I think that makes a huge difference.”
Fall opportunities
There’s no practice quite like playing. Four Alabama players who road-tripped earlier this month from Tuscaloosa to Myrtle Beach and back – 20 hours round trip – can tell you that.
“It’s nice to finally play in something – have it mean something,” said sophomore Melanie Bailes, for whom the Golfweek Caledonia Amateur represented her first competitive start since the Ladies National Golf Association Amateur in July. She finished 30th at Caledonia, boosted by a final-round 73.
Bailes hit driver on all but the short holes. She felt she could attack the course with her driver. She’s swinging smoothly with help from new instructor Joe Wuertembuerger, who teaches out of Texas Rangers Golf Club in Arlington, Texas.
“That has turned everything around for me,” Bailes said of the instructor switch.
From Caledonia, Alabama was headed home to half a dozen qualifying rounds. In the SEC, teams have three opportunities to compete in the fall, beginning with the Blessings Collegiate Invitational on Oct. 3-5.
Four Tide players – Bailes plus Caroline Curtis, Kenzie Wright and Mary Mac Trammell – piled in Trammell’s car to drive to Caledonia for the competitive reps. Tournament golf has been hit or miss the past six months.
“I know for me, and I think for my teammates too, the best kind of practice is in tournaments and being able to play against other people and just see how your game lines up with everyone else,” said Curtis, a sophomore who nearly won at Caledonia before falling on the third hole of a playoff with Virginia Tech’s Emily Mahar.
Wright is something like the glue that keeps this whole squad together. She transferred to Alabama after two years at SMU, and now returns for a fifth year in Tuscaloosa. She would have done that regardless of whether Alabama got a fall competition season. When LPGA Q-School was canceled, it confirmed that she had made the right decision for the next year.
“Without having that, it was kind of like OK, this is definitely where I needed to be,” she said. “It was kind of like confirmation that I made the right decision. I was with (coaches) Mic (Potter) and Susan (Rosentiel) and I know that the only way I can really get better is with their help. I want to take advantage of that while I can use it.”
Never underestimate Indy and its super senior
It’s not all that unusual that the University of Indianapolis, an NCAA Division II school, competed in a Division I event last week. The Hounds won the Hoover Invitational, hosted by UAB women in Birmingham, Alabama, and that’s always going to turn heads.
“That’s not uncommon for us to be the only Division II team, we do that by design a lot of times to help with recruiting,” Indy head coach Brent Nicoson said. “I think it means more to other people than it does to us and the girls. It doesn’t matter to us.”
Nicoson says it humbly. Indy plays to win. The Hounds, who also won their home season opener in September, will complete in the LSU Classic during the spring season.
Indy fifth-year senior Pilar Echevarria, a four-time First-Team All-American, won the individual title at the Hoover, the 17th win of her career in 46 college starts. She has finished first or second in 27 of 46 career starts – in other words, more than 58 percent of the time.
In all those starts, Echeverria has only finished out the top 10 five times.
Nicoson brought in one freshman for the season, Maggie Schaffer. Some incomers might look at a fifth-year senior sticking around as a negative. Schaffer’s thought was completely opposite.
“She was completely on board because she was looking forward to playing with Pilar,” Nicoson said. “…If you’re excited and you want to win, who wouldn’t want Pilar back in your lineup?”
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