March 7, 2005
After practicing in chilly Orlando for a week, we hoped the weather was going to be better at the Gators' tournament. Unfortunately, Gainesville did not greet us with great weather during our practice round. We played in 50 degrees and rain for five and a half hours. Annabel was the only one who handled the wet and chilly conditions well. But then on the other hand, she is from England and is used to it by now.
The course is one of the longer and challenging courses we play all year. We hit four irons and seven woods into most greens, which are hard and undulated. The tournament lures many of the top ranked teams in the country, including the No.1 team Duke. It is always fun to play with the nation's top players.
On Friday we teed off in the first groups and had to deal with the cold conditions once again. Luckily, it warmed up during the day and one layer after another came off and we were able to wear short sleeved shirts. The team got off to a really bad start! I was low with 78, followed by Ashley's 79. It was a disappointing day and we knew we had to play better the following two days. Friday night we attended a nice banquet at UF's football stadium. We tried to reload our batteries for the rest of the night.
Saturday was, sadly, not any better golf wise. Everybody on the team struggled. We just could not get the ball in the hole and this continued during Sunday's round as well. Only Ashley shot under 80 on Sunday, with a score of 78. The tournament was a big disappointment and now we just have to try to look ahead. We have three more tournaments to go.
We play our next tournament in the beginning of spring break and it is at a course that resembles our home course here in Orlando. We had a good finish at that tournament last year. We have to practice hard this week to prepare ourselves. At least the sun will shine tomorrow too*