ORLANDO, Fla. – Mornings at the Kent State rental house in Central Florida this week started with bacon and eggs. It was a full kitchen, as each player took charge of her own morning fuel-up.
The breakfast routine, head coach Lisa Strom says, speaks to her team’s self-sufficient nature. Dinner, however, reflects their competitive fire. The six-woman Kent State squad divided into two groups of three in a practice round for the UCF Challenge on Saturday afternoon. The loser had to make the pasta.
Pimnipa Panthong was on the winning team, which is a good thing because she hates to lose, she says. At anything.
“That really gets me going,” she said, laughing. “Sometimes the loser has to do push-ups, something like that.”
Leaderboard: UCF Challenge
That mindset fits in nicely on a squad that won its fourth season title on Tuesday at Eagle Creek Golf Club. The Flashes, which ended the fall No. 6 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, have only one head-to-head loss all season and that’s to Texas, the No. 1 team in the nation.
Panthong, who grew up in Thailand, has not finished outside the top 7 in a college event this season. She has seven career wins over three and half years. The ball pocket of her bag is covered with white pins that have a yellow lightning bolt in the center. Strom hands those out for major accomplishments (a round in the 60s or a team win are good ways to score one). It’s one tradition she brought with her from previous coaching stints at Texas State and Ohio State.
Strom is in her first year at Kent State. It can be a difficult thing when the guard changes, no matter where a team is ranked. Strom has approached it gently and with an open mind. Lodging situations like this week, where the team stays together in one house, have helped ease the transition.
“They didn’t expect to have a new coach,” Strom said candidly of replacing Greg Robertson, who took the head women’s coaching job at Oklahoma State this fall. Robertson had spent the previous six years at Kent State.
Strom, who played on the LPGA before her college coaching career, knows you can’t force it. It’s a matter of “meeting them where they are.”
“In order for trust to be built, you have to be around each other,” Strom said. “You can’t just expect it on day one.”
Kent State fired a closing 13-under 275 to win the UCF Challenge by six shots. Four Flashes finished in the top 10. Two of those women were bogey free in the final round, including Chloe Salort. The junior has upped her commitment to this game noticeably. The usually stoic player ended her day in happy tears.
Strom called it a glimpse of what “good” can look like for Salort down the road.
“She started working hard over the winter break, and it was almost like a lightbulb moment for her: ‘I need to work harder, I need to make a difference on this team and I need to put the work in.’”
If Salort is the up-and-comer, then Panthong and Stormo are Strom’s quiet leaders. They are both fiercely competitive, which contributes to a meteoric rise in their individual rankings, and unquestionably committed.
Stormo, who hails from Norway, said coming to Kent State made her more independent.
As top-25 players in the world, Stormo (No. 9 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking) and Panthong (No. 25) have been received invitations to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur this spring. Panthong returns after a 17th-place finish last year, but Stormo will play for the first time. Kent State is among a small number of teams to send multiple players.
“I just feel like that tournament, it’s awesome,” Panthong said. “I really just want to go back and play that course again. Everything was perfect.”
Stormo and Panthong have played an important role in Strom’s transition and the Flashes’ continued success. Panthong preached communication, making sure Strom knew what this team was used to and what had worked in the past. Stormo liked that every day had a plan, and that it might not be the same for every player.
“I think just knowing your game and knowing what you need to do to improve, different people have different stuff they need to improve and I think that’s what made us improve,” she said.
Credit to Strom for embracing that winning formula.
Kent State, which owns a 21-year Mid-American Conference winning streak, is by definition a mid-major school, but redefined. Strom tells her players to play like a Power 5 school – after all, they are traveling, competing and recruiting like one.
She also reminds them to enjoy the wins, even as they pile up. Winning doesn’t happen often in this sport.
“There’s only a few dynasties in the history of women’s golf, only a few teams that really dominated a season,” Strom said. “Each win is special, and that’s to be celebrated. It’s not to be overlooked.”
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