Women’s Golf Winds Down First Fall Season
Lauren Boisseau ’14. (Photo courtesy of OWU’s Office of Marketing and Communication)
The Ohio Wesleyan women’s golf team is quickly wrapping up its fall season, and looking forward to the upcoming seasons.
The Bishops competed in their first tournament, the Capital Fall Invitational, on September 26 and finished ninth out of 9 teams.
“This very young, inexperienced team is slowly making progress. We’ve been working very hard on developing feel around the greens,” says head coach Jana Shipley.
Freshman Lauren Boisseau led the Bishops at Capital, but she was admittedly disappointed in her personal game. However, she still is positive about the future of the team.
“We’ve gotten better every time on our short game, and we’re starting to drop the extra putts we used to miss. That’s really what’s going to help us in the long run,” says Boisseau.
The team will finish its fall season at the Pat Clouse Invitational on Saturday and Sunday at Windy Knoll Golf Club in Springfield. “A realistic expectation would be for everyone to improve their score from the (last tournament),” says Shipley.
Although the first season for the newly formed team has started off slowly, everyone has high hopes for the upcoming season.
“I’m very confident that by spring we will have a team that can all break 100,” says Shipley.
Another thing the team is anticipating is hosting tournaments.
Ohio Wesleyan will host Wooster in a dual match on April 2-3, 2011, at Mill Creek Golf Club. The Bishops and Fighting Scots squared off in a dual match on September 18 in the first intercollegiate competition for both teams. Wooster won by a 428-468 margin in that event.
Two weeks later, Ohio Wesleyan will host the inaugural Laura Bump Invitational.
The tournament honors Laura Pierce Bump ’58, who is a member of the Ohio Wesleyan Athletic Hall of Fame and a longtime coach at Ohio Wesleyan. Bump served as head coach of the Battling Bishop field hockey, women’s basketball, and softball teams, and later was an assistant women’s basketball coach under Nan Carney-DeBord for several years.
“We felt with the addition of women’s golf that it was appropriate to honor someone, as we honor Bob Strimer Hon. ’81 with our annual men’s golf tournament,” says Ian Miller, director of golf at Ohio Wesleyan.
“Laura Bump is a longtime supporter of women’s golf—she played women’s golf as an undergraduate (before women’s sports had varsity status)—and Ohio Wesleyan athletics in general. Also, she was the honoree for the “W” Association golf tournament last fall, so this is a continuation of that honor.”
The Laura Bump Invitational is scheduled for April 16-17, 2011, at Mill Creek Golf Club.