After the golf team’s fourth-place finish in the Florida Challenge on Monday, redshirt sophomore Katie Mitchell and her teammates are looking to improve in their first three-round tournament in Palos Verdes, Calif., on Feb. 9-11.
“We were all disappointed in how we played,” Mitchell said. “But we took a lot from it and it made us really hungry to get back to work and get ready for California in two weeks.”
Mitchell, who celebrated her 21st birthday the day of the tournament, attributed the Gators’ disappointing performance to poor weather during the first round and the difficulty of the course.
“The greens at Black Diamond are difficult,” she said. “They were in really good shape and receptive. They were mowed pretty tight, so the ball was spinning and the break of the putts was tricky.
“The beginning was a little rough with the weather, there was fog so you couldn’t see the ball real well and it was cold and nasty.”
No. 16 UF finished 11 shots behind winner UCF with a score of 17-over (593) — a far departure from when the Gators won the tournament by nine strokes in 2013.
Mitchell shot rounds of 75 and 74 during Monday’s tournament, tying for 14th place with FIU’s Meghan MacLaren and Miami’s Rika Park. The rest of the Florida team placed among the top 30 players.
“I feel like I played well, I hit the ball good, but my scores didn’t show that,” Mitchell said. “I burned the edges all day, coming really close but still missing.”
Mitchell gave coach Emily Glaser credit for encouraging the team to finish strong in the second round of the tournament.
“She kept pretty even throughout the day, when we were down she pumped us up and helped motivate us to finish strong and make some birdies,” Mitchell said. “Before it started, she told us to stay patient, the patient ones play the smartest, and to trust ourselves.”
The team will begin qualifying rounds later this week to determine which players will attend the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge in Palos Verdes. The Gators finished in fifth place out of 16 teams last year, earning a score of 40-over (892) on a course Glaser described as “unforgiving.”
Mitchell said the team plans to do a lot of putting in practice to prepare for the hilly greens in California.
“It’s always difficult when you have to travel such a long way, get acclimated to the time change, get used to the grass,” Mitchell said.
“It’s easier to go from Florida, Bermuda grass to other grass, so we kind of have the high end there.”
Follow Emily Cochrane on Twitter @EmilySCochrane
