Women’s golf is 13th at invitational

  The Marshall University women's golf team will rely on senior leadership and hard work to make it to the Conference USA Tournament in April.

   The team finished 13th out of 16 teams last week at the USA Lady Jaguar Invitational in Mobile, Ala., their first tournament in four months.     

   Senior Andrea Grier shot the best of the team with scores of 77, 75 and 79 on her three rounds.

   "I just got some lucky bounces," Grier said. "I was hitting it really awful on the practice round, but I had an idea about where the ball was going. It was going to the left so on the first few holes I just played it to the right to get it onto the fairways."

   Senior Larie Lynch shot in the low-to-mid 80s on all three days and said the break between fall and spring makes practice complicated.

   "I didn't get to practice as much, and my short game was really bad," Lynch said. "We can't practice with snow on the ground, and that's what affected my game. I didn't have any confidence."

   Lynch said practicing outside golf courses is less effective.

   "When you go into your spring season, there's this gap where you can't play on courses and have to practice on mats," Lynch said. "When you hit off mats, you can't see where your ball's going and can have this false impression of how you're really hitting."

   Lynch said the team has better talent than last year's team, which finished last at the conference tournament, but the team needs to practice at every opportunity to be ready for this year's conference tournament.

   "Andrea did really well last week, but the rest of us just weren't ready," Lynch said. "People just need to try their hardest and put in their all."

   Grier said she shot a 78-average per round last fall, her best average in five years and she hopes to continue to improve throughout the season.

   "I just want to finish in a good standing for myself and finish with a better stroke average than in the fall or just a good stroke average for myself," Grier said.

   Lynch, who also averaged a 78 per round in the fall, said she wants to shoot well each round but thinks it is more important to play her hardest each round.

   "In the past I've had goals of reaching certain scores, but this year my goal is to practice my hardest and focus every shot," Lynch said.

   Grier said after this season, she plans to continue practicing and playing golf to see where it takes her as she finishes graduate school next year at Marshall.

   Lynch said golf is going to become purely recreational after this season, and she plans to attend law school.

   "Golf is going to become strictly fun after college," Lynch said. "I'll probably take up tennis or some other sport or, I guess, snowboarding or skiing when it's cold."

   Erin Shaver can be contacted at shaver29@marshall.edu.