The No. 2 Alabama women’s golf team plays its final tournament of the regular season in Athens, Ga. this weekend. Having come up just short in their last tournament, the Crimson Tide is determined to finish the season on a positive note.
The Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, hosted by the No. 12 Georgia Bulldogs, catches the Crimson Tide at an opportune time, senior Brooke Pancake said.
“I expect us to do really well,” Pancake said. “We just got out of a tournament, and it wasn’t our best. It was a bit sloppy, and we lost by one. So, we’re definitely in the position of being really hungry and definitely want to be back on a winning streak. But also, I expect us to keep getting better. I think that we’re in a great position because we’re peaking going into the postseason.”
Though the coming weeks will be the last time Pancake will play for the Crimson Tide, she will not be disappearing from the golf scene any time soon. She will represent the United States as a member of the 2012 Curtis Cup team in June, where she will compete against her current teammate, Stephanie Meadow, who has been selected to represent the team from Great Britain and Ireland.
Curtis Cup selection is not Meadow’s only honor. Earlier in March she was named SEC Golfer of the Week.
Meadow predicts this weekend to be a good transition toward the postseason, which includes Southeastern Conference Championships, NCAA Regionals and NCAA Nationals.
“The course is always in great shape,” Meadow said. “If you have a good short game there, you’re going to do well, so I think if we all just go out there and play one shot at a time, we’re going to come out with a great result.”
Meadow, along with the rest of the team, is looking forward to the coming months of competition.
Head coach Mic Potter said the key to achieving success is taking it each shot at a time.
“We’ve made it a point this year to think of every tournament as a championship, and in order to prepare ourselves, not only for the postseason for us, but also for these girls personally,” Potter said.
Though the spring and summer offer a good bit of excitement, Potter does not want to look too far into the future.
“I expect nothing different from what we always do, and that is the first tee shot is the most important, and after that, the next approach is important, as well,” Potter said. “We don’t really think a whole lot about scores and results. All we care about is getting each girl to perform up to her full capability. So, the closer we can get to that over this week, the better we’re going to be leading into the postseason.”
Pancake and the rest of the squad hope to continue to build on their success mentally and physically as they make their way to the end of the season.
“Not only have we had extremely talented, great players, but there’s a lot of competition on the team, so it forces us to keep getting better,” Pancake said. “You have technically some of the best collegiate players just on this team, so we’re learning and getting better every single day in practice. I would say that the past four years, we’ve skimmed in under the radar a little bit. I think that it was more or less that we realized that we were a winning team and a team that other competitors should really take into account.”
