Tag: Kory Henkes

Swann Song: Ole Miss senior Kennedy Swann ends college career in style as national champion

Fifth-year senior Kennedy Swann, with a big smile and even bigger game, has been the emotional leader Ole Miss.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After leading Ole Miss to a dominant victory at the NCAA Championship – the first women’s title in school history – head coach Kory Henkes said, “If you get the right people on your team anything can happen.”

When you look at the Rebel roster, Kennedy Swann stands out.

The Austin, Texas, native with the big smile and even bigger game has been the emotional leader and a sparkplug for Ole Miss, but this weekend at Grayhawk Golf Club almost never happened for two reasons. The first? Swann, a Clemson transfer two years ago, was unsure about returning for a fifth year after COVID-19 wiped out the 2019-2020 season. The second?

“To be honest, at first I told her no,” Henkes said of the initial call about a transfer. “I just didn’t know if it was the right fit for where we were going with our program at the time. After talking to her I said, ‘alright, I’ll give you a second chance, but if you mess up, you’re done.’ It was strict for the first year, and she didn’t blow it. She took advantage of every opportunity.”

‘We had our moments’

Both Henkes and assistant coach Zack Byrd uttered those words when talking about Swann’s start in Oxford.

“We’ve had our moments and she was a challenge when she got here, but it’s been unbelievable to watch her mature and see her game get better. She was always the one asking to go over stats, asking what can I do to get better,” said Byrd, who works a lot with Swann and was on the bag for her quarterfinal run at the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur. “Coming in she was averaging 76 and now she’s under par. It’s been one of the most fulfilling moments of my life to work with her.”

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“We had our moments, not every one was great, but that’s what gets us (to a national championship),” echoed Henkes. “We hold them accountable, and if we don’t do that early on, we don’t get here today.”

The final shot

As if making school history in her final event wasn’t impressive enough, Swann called her shot.

“She called me and Kory and said, ‘If I’m coming back we’re gonna win a national championship, right?’”

Right she was.

Swann finished 3-0 in match play this week and never saw the 18th green after making birdie on her final stroke-play hole on Monday. Not only that, she ended her college career in style with her family by her side, every step of the way.

“To dream this for your kid when they’re 10 years old and you see the talent, the fight they have in their heart, the want to compete and the will to win, to see it play out like this, knowing this was her very last golf tournament, to be here at the very last and see her hit that shot on 17 to seal the match, it was just nuts,” said her father, Jay Swann.

That shot on 17? Just a knockdown 60-degree from 86-some yards to a foot, leading to a conceded birdie and a crucial second point for the Rebels against Oklahoma State’s Maja Stark, a finalist for the ANNIKA Award and the No. 6-ranked player in the country.

“That was pure luck or something else came over me because that was not my intention,” she said with her signature smile and a laugh. “My intention was get it on the green somewhere and make her make birdie to beat me and go to 18.”

“I hit it and thought, ‘that’s either going to be really, really good or its going to land next to the pin and roll off the back of the green and I’m going to have a tough chip,'” explained Swann. “I saw it land and saw her pick up my ball and throw it in the rough so I thought, ‘well, that must’ve been pretty good.’”

Family business

The Swann’s bought an RV – they call it the bus – the summer before Kennedy’s senior year of high school, and it’s been put to good use the last year.

“With COVID, travel was difficult,” said Jay. “So we loaded up the bus and drove from Austin, Texas, to Washington, D.C. for the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur in the summer. We knew this spring would be her last go around so we loaded up the bus again and drove to Florida in February.”

“When she committed to that fifth year I told Jay I really want to go to every tournament,” said Kennedy’s mother, Laura. “He said, ‘okay, let’s make it happen.'”

NCAA Women's Championship
Ole Miss golfer Kennedy Swann celebrates with her father Jay Swann after defeating Oklahoma State in the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club. (Photo: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)

Laura, a counselor and adjunct faculty at the University of Texas, worked from the RV when she was out on the road. Jay, a lieutenant for the Austin Police Department, would fly back home to work and make it to tournaments when he could on the weekends. Laura spent seven weeks on the road watching her daughter become one of the nation’s best players.

Swann is exempt into the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur, and the family will be “loading up the bus” for the drive to Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, in about five weeks.

On the road again.

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Historymakers: Ole Miss women’s golf claims school’s first recognized NCAA Championship

The Ole Miss women’s golf team made school history this week, and they made it look easy.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona – Ron “Goldie” McClendon wanted to get in the trophy picture with the Ole Miss women’s golf team, newly crowned national champions.

“We couldn’t do it,” he said, referring to his football days at Ole Miss with quarterback Eli Manning.

McClendon married Jade Polonich, a golfer and volleyball player at Ole Miss, and the couple brought their 7-year-old twins Tayo and Niko out to watch the Rebels shatter a ceiling that no other team – male or female – ever has at Ole Miss: win a national championship.

Ole Miss claims three national championships in football (1959, 1960 and 1962), which at the time required at least one entity to vote for a team No. 1 in their final poll to be declared a national champion.

“You think of all the years that went into sports at our school, that this is the first – in 2021,” said Ole Miss coach Kory Henkes. “You can’t have a second until you have a first.”

Ron McClendon and wife Jade Polonich pose with the winning Ole Miss team along with twin sons Tayo and Niko. (Golfweek photo)

Ole Miss faced Oklahoma State in the NCAA finals. OSU boasts 52 national titles – all won by men. No matter what happened on Wednesday afternoon at Grayhawk, history would be made.

“It’s good and it’s bad,” said longtime Washington coach Mary Lou Mulflur, “because you feel like that should happen more often. But it just shows you opportunity … how deep the sport has gotten.

“Ole Miss, where were they five years ago?”

When Henkes took over the program in June of 2015, the Rebels were ranked 134th in the country. In August of 2017, Julia Johnson, at the recommendation of a mental coach, wrote out a list of goals on a notecard. In all-caps at the bottom was a particularly bold one: win a national title.

“Why play college golf if you don’t think you can win it?” asked Johnson. “I knew what we were building; I knew where we were going, even when people didn’t really think and believe in us in the beginning, I kind of always knew.”

Henkes led Ole Miss to its first SEC title in her fourth year as head coach, the same year she gave birth to daughter Parker. When Henkes was pregnant with her second, parents of recruits sometimes asked assistant coach Zack Byrd if they thought she could still do it all as mother of two. Byrd’s response: After the second, he expected her to win a national title.

Daughter Kate turns 1 on Saturday.

On Wednesday morning, Stanford coach Anne Walker, a mother of two girls, sent Henkes an encouraging email in which she noted that moms have won national titles in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Henkes was eager to add her name to the list.

Kory Henkes’ daughters Parker (2 1/2) and Kate (1). (courtesy Henkes)

“As a mom, it’s tough doing this career,” said Henkes. “It’s tough being on the road a lot. You have a lot more balls to juggle than maybe a male counterpart … it shows it can be done.”

Henkes’ husband, Kenneth, works in the ER as a physician’s assistant and said that nearby grandparents help them to juggle work and family. Kory runs a tight ship at practice. She’s highly disciplined and expects the same of her team. It’s how she manages to do it all.

“I’m so lucky to be on a team with her,” said Kenneth. “We have the Henkes team at the house, and she has the Old Miss girls at the Golf House.”

Johnson finished her MBA in four years at Ole Miss and will get a second Masters in higher education in an extra fifth year. She’s not sure if professional golf is in her future but can definitely picture herself as an athletic director.

Speaking of ADs, Ole Miss’ Keith Carter flew in from Oxford for the championship match. He appreciates the fact that Henkes’ team reflects her: spunky, fiery, talented and tough. He hopes what happens today lights a fire.

“That’s what we talk about all the time,” said Carter, “we’re not just here to show up, we’re here to win championships. I think this validates that.”

Lynnette Johnson retired on April 30 as Deputy Athletics Director for Sports and Administration after 32 years at Ole Miss. She hired both Henkes and Malloy. Johnson bent down and put her hands on her knees at the conclusion of the trophy presentation, taking in the gravity of the moment.

“When you see it,” she said, “then you believe you can do it.”

That goes for the men, too.

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Ole Miss on the season that was gone too soon

Ole Miss didn’t get the chance to defend its SEC Championship title this week. Or try to make a deep run at the NCAA Championship. T

Ole Miss didn’t get the chance to defend its SEC Championship title this week.

Or try to make a deep run at the NCAA Championship. The Rebels won a school record four times this season and finished the spring 13th in the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings, continuing a steep upward climb that’s been years in the making. The global coronavirus pandemic altered the future of all sports teams across the U.S.

Junior Julia Johnson, who was set to compete earlier this month at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, carded an NCAA record-tying 61 in the fall season and was on schedule to shatter the school’s scoring record with a 70.72 average.

Golfweek caught up with Johnson, senior Kennedy Swann, freshman Chiara Tamburlini and head coach Kory Henkes to talk about the abrupt end to their promising season.

Swann gives insight into her next steps at Ole Miss and Henkes, who is due with her second child in early June, talks about a hectic life at home with husband, Kenneth, who works in the emergency room on the front lines of this global pandemic.

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