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Clovers and Cougars play at Clover Meadows
CLOVERDALE--It was more than hot Monday and much to the surprise of some golfers and coaches, Clover Meadows Golf Course hosted a three-way match with Cloverdale, North Putnam and Owen Valley.
The coaches kept the players supplied with water and juice throughout the match and though the temperatures were high, some of the individual scores were at an all-time low.
"I was just taking it hit-by-hit," Cloverdale's Abbie Speas said. She shot a 53, which was the lowest in her career. "Trying to not rush it, because that's what I was doing in the beginning. I was just taking deep breaths and hitting it. (The heat) was difficult, but we have our coaches. They provided a lot of special attention with water and wet towels."
Owen Valley took the lowest score of the day with 216. Cloverdale scored 220. North Putnam was not in contention because its No. 2 golfer, Jessie Cox fell ill due to the heat. Lady Cougar Olivia Zarate scored the lowest for North Putnam and said that the 90-degree weather didn't affect her as much as she thought it would.
"I thought that, playing in the heat, I was going to be really awful," the No. 1 golfer said. Zarate scored a 57 on the 9-hole course. "It wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I was consistent within the first six holes. Toward the end I did lose it though. So I'm going to work on staying consistent as well as focusing more on lowering my score."
North Putnam coach Linda Patrick stressed to her team that weather conditions are just another challenge on the golf course.
"I tell them to focus on the fact that we always will have adverse types of conditions," Patrick said. "They have to take their mind off of the heat and humidity and do their best. They have to focus on the fact that we are out here to play golf."
Apart from Monday's weather conditions, Patrick said that last weeks rain limited her team's practice time during a week where they otherwise had a lot of time off.
"We did not have a single match last week," she said. "We had two days of practice and we worked very hard on getting some swing issues taken care of that we've been struggling with since the beginning of the season. Of course, we had a lot of rain and didn't have any practices after Tuesday. We came out here today and it shows that nothing was translated from the range to the course. Until that happens, we are not going to see any drop in our scores."
Patrick acknowledges that with her more inexperienced team she expects to see certain struggles.
"I have three newcomers this year," Patrick said. "So they've never really had a lot of team golf yet. It's our fourth match and other teams have probably had a little more practice. We'll get there. Some of my more experienced players need to start picking up the pace and showing what they can do this year."
On the Cloverdale side, coach Matthew Langdon was somewhat pleased with the way his Lady Clovers handled the adversity.
"You can never really prepare for this type of heat index," Langdon said. "You get some high temperatures in the summers where you can practice. But it was so stuffy out here tonight that I think all the teams experienced some high scores. We also had some nice career lows tonight."
Apart from Speas, who broke under 55 for the first time, they also saw Abby Walker shoot a 57, while Harlee Fuetter shot a 50 the lowest of the Putnam County players.
"I think you can always learn from this," Langdon continued. "It's probably not going to be this type of weather late in the year. I told the girls that you will have that feeling that you did tonight on you're eighth and ninth hole in other meets. So you have to try and persevere through. We are right around where we want to be. We've got to get back around that 210 range. If we can get back there towards the end of the meets and the bigger meets, we'll be on the right track."
The Clover golfers also acknowledged that scores are on the right track but can also be lowered as the season progresses.
"Playing in the heat it definitely wasn't my best day," Fuetter said. The junior is the No. 1 golfer on the Clover team. "I feel like I did have an off day. I think that once the season starts to pick up a little more things will start to be a little more consistent and things will start to fall into track for me."
Cloverdale's next match will be an away North Vermillion and Southmont three-way on Sept. 2 at 5 p.m.
North Putnam's next match will be a Monrovia and Danville three-way meet at Twin Bridges Golf Course on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
At Clover Meadows G.C.
Owen Valley 216, Cloverdale 220, North Putnam (No Contention)
Medalist: Dayhuff (Owen Valley) 45
Cloverdale-- Fuetter 50, Spencer 60, Speas 53, Walker 57, Nichols 69
North Putnam-- Zarate 57, Cox N/A, Harrington 68, Dixon 67, Eltz 70,
Owen Valley Arnold 55, Dayhuff 45, Summerlot 59, Myers 57, Summers 64,