An Inside View of the Waterlefe Invitational
March 25, 2004
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Coral Gables, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) – – Well, the last tournament held at Waterlefe inBradenton Florida was a true rollercoaster ride forour team. None of us could have predicted all of theevents of the week before they unfolded.
It all started on Sunday when we headed up to thetournament. We got to the course and had lunch beforegoing to tee it up and one of the girls wasn’t feelingso good so she decided not to play the practice roundto get rested up for the next 2 days. That night wehad the player banquet dinner which was ok as we gotto mingle with a few other schools. But mainly wejust had our team meeting and we ready to startbusiness the next morning.
The next day we were set to play 36 holes with an 8:15 starting time. We started the round and the entire team was playing great. With about 1 hour left in the first round something really scary happened. There is a river that runs through the golf course that is always full of boats and people. Near the 15th hole, a short par 3, a tragedy occurred while one of my teammates was teeing off. A young man and some of his friends were out on a boat. One of the men fell out of the boat and a rescue attempt took place. During all of this we had to continue play. It was probably the hardest thing any of us have ever had to do on the golf course.
Itturned out that in the morning round the team playedreally well and shot a 291 and were leading thetournament by 16 shots. In the second round we lostour focus and struggled down the stretch shooting a316 and now only leading the tournament by 1. Thatnight we all got ready for the next day and tried tostay in the present.
When Tuesday morning came around we woke up earlyagain and it was raining. All of us didn’t think wewere going to get to play wihich was definitely not theright thing to do. We needed to commit ourselves toplaying and winning it whatever the conditions were.We got to the course and due to weather they told uswe were going to be riding in golf carts which ourteam hates to do. So this just added to us notwanting to play. We didn’t go onto the coursecommitted and it showed in the end results. Westarted play and then had an hour and a half raindelay before we restarted play.
We finished the daywith a 328 which dropped us from 1st to fifth. Ithink that we all learned our lesson from thistournament and now we know that we can shoot thescores but after shooting them we have to staycommitted and get the job done.
Our next tournament in April 2-4 at Shulas in MiamiLakes, which is the State Championship that we host.We will be looking for our second win of the semesterand we will also be trying to ensure our spot at theRegional tournament which is fast approaching. Welook forward to seeing all of the hurricane fans outat the course supporting the team. We will be teeingoff at 8am all three days.
