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"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
online golf column
by
Chris Dortch
May 14, 2009
While searching for
something to put the recent success of UTC’s women’s golf team
into proper perspective, I recalled a day in the early ’90s when a
contingent from the big house—UT-Knoxville, that is—called on
Honors Course chairman Jack Lupton.
The group included women’s athletic director
Joan Cronin, and if memory serves, even the legendary Pat Summitt
came along to provide star power. Their mission was to hit up
Lupton, one of amateur’s golf’s all-time leading benefactors, for
some start-up cash for a women’s golf team.
The story goes that Lupton was sufficiently
impressed with the pitch to send the group on its way with a check
for a cool quarter of a mil.
I’m confident Lupton’s loot wasn’t the only
significant donation to the cause, which got me to thinking. How
quickly did the Lady Vols’ fledgling program put a competitive
team on the course? More specifically, how long did it take them
to play their way into the NCAA Championships?
That question became relevant last week, when
Collette Murray’s Lady Mocs, in their second season after the
program lay dormant for 20 years, played their way onto the big
stage with a gutty performance at the NCAA Central Regional, where
they finished eighth, allowing them to advance to next week’s
championships. The picture on the Lady Mocs’ website (www.gomocs.com)
tells it all. Murray and her kiddie corps—three freshmen and two
sophomores—are sitting in front of the leaderboard, where,
alongside UCLA, Purdue,
Wake Forest, Michigan State and
Ohio State is the
name CHATTANOOGA.
Before I tell you how long it took for the
well-heeled Lady Vols program to take that big step, I have to
point out that no one wrote a check to Murray for $250,000,
$25,000 or even $2,500 when she started her program. The NCAA
allows women’s golf teams to offer six full scholarships. Murray
has two and a half to spread among seven players. Five of those
players come from all over the world—Australia, Austria, Columbia,
Peru and Sweden—a long way for half a scholarship, or less.
As for the Lady Vols, well, to their credit,
they made the NCAA East Regional field in their first season, and
in their second, third and fourth seasons as well.
But not until its fifth season did Tennessee
advance to the NCAA Championships.
All this serves to put an even larger
exclamation point on the job Murray and her players have done in
such a short time. Clearly Murray, a native of Scotland who also
played her college golf in the U.S., knows how to evaluate talent.
And she’s obviously got her sales pitch down to a science.
What she doesn’t have is six endowed
scholarship and huge travel, recruiting and equipment budgets.
And you know what? She’s not worried about
that. At least not right now.
“It’s the same as in life,” Murray said.
“It’s what you make of it. And we’ve gone out and made the best of
what we have. Would we have done more if we’d had more? Who knows?
We’ll never know.”
No one is suggesting the Lady Mocs will win
the NCAA title next week. But the accomplishment of having gotten
there will propel the program to even higher levels of success,
just as it did for Mark Guhne’s men’s program.
Already, Murray has seen positive results of
last week’s finish in the regionals.
“In the past week I’ve been inundated with
videos, resumes, girls telling me what they’re up to this summer,”
Murray said. “They’ve come from in-state, out of state, and a
couple from overseas. We’re already reaping the benefits of what
we’ve accomplished.”
Murray could only shake her head at the
thought of adding another talented player or two to the mix she’s
already put together. Last season, the Lady Mocs’ first after that
long hiatus, Murray signed Australian Emma de Groot, who went on
to earn All-Southern Conference honors and was chosen the league’s
freshman of the year, and Christine Wolf of Austria, who was also
chosen all-conference.
This year, Maria Salinas of Peru, Maria
Juliana Loza of Columbia and Moa Duff of Sweden joined the
program, and all contributed immediately. Salinas matched de
Groot’s freshman accolades, earning All-SoCon and
freshman-of-the-year honors. Loza made the SoCon All-Freshman team
along with Salinas. And Duff, who didn’t show up until January,
shot consecutive 74s in the first two rounds of last week’s
regional that were vital to the cause.
Could Furman, the SoCon’s perennial women’s
golf kingpin, have to move over? Consider that the Lady Paladins,
who won the SoCon championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA
regionals, failed to advance out of the East, finishing 14th.
But Murray isn’t just thinking about
dislodging Furman at the top of the SoCon. She’s ready to have a
go at the rest of the NCAA, too. She’s proven remarkably adept at
using her strengths and masking her weaknesses, and she doesn’t
have many of the former.
Murray doesn’t hesitate when identifying her
key advantages. Chattanooga area golf clubs have been
accommodating to the fledgling program, giving the Lady Mocs great
venues to play and practice. Not many schools can boast of having
courses the likes of The Honors, Council Fire, Lookout Mountain
and Black Creek available to them.
“The golf courses, that’s our strength,”
Murray said. “You can’t take that advantage away from us. If you
can convince [recruits] to come and have a look, it pretty much
speaks for itself. You can ask any of the girls. We got them here,
they liked what they saw. Now with the practice facility coming
along, we’ve got as much to offer as anybody.”
As for the NCAA Championships, to be played
May 19-22 at the Caves Valley Golf
Club in Owing Mills, Md., the Lady Mocs are ready to send another
message that a new women’s golf power has arrived.
“In each
of our home countries we’ve played big enough tournaments to know
what it’s going to be like,” de Groot said. “What the atmosphere
is going to be like. It’s just a matter of us as a team pulling it
together when we need to. We all have the experience. And now
after last week, we’ve got the confidence that we can play with
the best.”
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