Tag: Pilar Echeverria

College notes: UAB men, Indianapolis women undefeated; Alabama women get tournament reps

College golf has restarted for the fall season, even if it looks a little different.

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.

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.

Alabama women's golf
Melanie Bailes, Kenzie Wright and Mary Mac Trammell watch teammate Caroline Curtis compete in a playoff at the Golfweek Caledonia Amateur.

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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Pilar Echeverria’s North & South run the latest adventure in an unexpected summer

Pilar Echeverria was the final player to make it through to the second round of match play at the North & South Women’s Amateur.

Pilar Echeverria loves how measurable this game is. The team name on her golf bag at the North & South Women’s Amateur this week in Pinehurst, North Carolina, doesn’t matter nearly as much as the 30-foot slider putt she made for birdie on No. 11, the approach she hit to 12 feet at No. 12 or the five consecutive holes she ultimately won on the back nine at Pinehurst No. 2 to put away opponent Amari Avery in the first round of match play.

“I putted really good,” Echeverria said of her Thursday play. “I wasn’t hitting the ball really good but I was scrambling well. As long as you’re making the putts, you’ll be fine.”

Echeverria, who just finished her fourth year at the University of Indianapolis, was the final player to make it through to the second round of match play at the North & South Women’s Amateur on Thursday. After a tight front nine against Amari Avery, Echeverria built a lead Avery couldn’t overcome. On Friday morning, she’ll return to face Michigan State’s Haylin Harris.

Scores: North & South Women’s Amateur

Among the 16 women left on the North & South bracket – all college players – Echeverria is the only one not at a Power 5 school, much less the only one at an NCAA Division II school. But she’s also the only four-time First-Team All-American. Back in Indianapolis, everyone knows her.

“She’s one of the most popular kids on campus,” Indy head coach Brent Nicoson said. “She’s going to go down as one of the most successful athletes at our school.”

Echeverria is playing the historic women’s amateur event for the first time this week. It didn’t take her long to fall in love with Pinehurst. The last time she was here as a 15-year-old, she got on Pine Needles. Pinehurst No. 2 has been a new and welcome challenge.

This week marks the start of a long stretch of summer tournaments on her way back to Indianapolis for a fifth year. She’ll play the Women’s Western Amateur next week (after finishing in the top 10 there last year), take a week off and then arrive in Rockville, Maryland, for the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

At No. 65 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Echeverria easily got into the U.S. Women’s Amateur based on her ranking. The USGA guaranteed the top 75 players a spot, but she only found about that when a friend called her excitedly the day the USGA released its new exemption categories.

“I was very happy,” she said.

This will be Echeverria’s first start in the event since 2018.

Echeverria, who grew up in Guatemala, wasn’t planning on spending her summer this way. When the pandemic set in earlier this spring, the airport back home closed before she could get out of the country. Echeverria stayed in her apartment in Indianapolis, without a car to get around but with plenty of friends in her adopted hometown. She hasn’t seen her parents since winter break, but if her mother can get to the Midwest for a visit soon, she will.

Until then, Echeverria will keep playing golf. She’s currently traveling with a friend from Guatemala. At the Women’s Western, her boyfriend will caddie for her before handing over the bag to Indianapolis assistant coach Kacey Dalpes for the Women’s Am.

At Pinehurst this week Echeverria has had to be careful about remembering where she is.

“Three months I’ve been tapping in with one hand or just picking up the ball when it’s 3 feet away,” she said. “Getting back into that competition mode.”

There was never any question, once the NCAA made a fifth year available to student-athletes, that she would complete that at Indy. Echeverria wants to play professionally, and there are checkpoints she feels she still needs to hit before reaching that level.

“A year ends up being nothing, it goes by pretty quick,” she said. “I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that I could still work on and prepare myself a little bit more.”

Plus, Echeverria couldn’t fathom leaving her team or head coach Brent Nicoson. Loyalty is important to her.

“They’ve opened so many doors and I honestly, I wasn’t that good in high school and he saw something in me that no one else saw.”

They sure can see it now.

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