The Idaho women’s golf season gets underway this weak as the Vandals head to Fort Collins, Colo., for the Ptarmigan Fall Invitational Sept. 10-11. It will mark the first official tournament for the Vandals since the departure of last year’s graduating seniors Kayla Mortellaro and Teo Poplawski, who had become staples of the program.
Vandal women’s golf coach Lisa Johnson acknowledged that their absence is going to mean everyone on the team is going to have to pull their own weight to make up for their departures.
“It will definitely be different. The team is going to have to come together and work in a different way than we have in the past,” Johnson said. “We’re going to rely on every single person to try and shoot a low round every tournament.”
According to Johnson, the team has been improving over the past two weeks with scores that have continued to drop after a slow start this summer.
The Vandals will head to Colorado with three returners and two freshmen.
Sophomore Leilanie Kim, whose best result last year was a sixth place finish at Price’s Give ‘Em Five Intercollegiate tournament, is the first of the returners. Then there is junior Rachel Choi, who had an eighth place finish at the WSU Cougar Cup last season. The final returner is sophomore Kaitlyn Oster, who competed in six tournaments as a freshman last year, with her best finish at Price’s Give Em Five Intercollegiate tournament, where she shot an overall score of eight over par.
Adding youth to an already young group will be freshmen Cassie McKinley and Kristin Strankman.
The Vandals will compete at the Ptarmigan Country Club where, according to Johnson, they should have an opportunity to put up some low scores.
“We’re very familiar with it. I’ve probably been there 10 years as a coach. We won this tournament three years ago,” Johnson said. “It’s a very scoreable golf course. The ball flies far with that elevation in Denver. We have to be dead on with our wedges and make a lot of birdie putts in order to compete and finish near the top of the leaderboard.”
The weather is supposed to be in the low 80’s and the opportunity to start the season with some low scores is going to be within reach.
While Mortellaro and Poplawski are gone, Johnson said that the goals of her team have remained the same and it’s important that they continue to work on getting better every week.
“The goal is always the same–win the WAC Championship, advance to regionals,” Johnson said. “We’ve made nationals. We’d like to make nationals.”
Unlike the men’s team, who plays in Pullman this week, the women Vandals golf team won’t be playing close to home until Sept. 24.
Jacob Dyer can be reached at [email protected]