Tough course + Tough team = “W!!”

Team at Willamette Inv'l in Salem

We played a tough course last weekend (Illahe CC in Salem, OR), with tight fairways and very thick rough, but we played tough and guess what??  Oh–you saw the headline–huh!!!   It was a lot of fun being close to home (for once!!) too!!!  Thank you so much to all our “peeps” who came to watch!!  Fun having fans out there!

We are now getting ready for our Conference Championship this weekend–so unfortunately no time to “blog!”  So sorry!!!  😦  I wanted to get these pics out though–we got a few good ones!!!! Enjoy and stand by for more exciting golf action!  Go Bruins!!

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“W” it is for Spring Classic!!!!

Team with trophies!

We all know that “W” stands for “Win” by now—but for this particular tournament, I think it might stand better for “Wow!”  In fact, we probably need TWO “W’s” for this tournament because it was the “Wow factor” in the “Wind” that got it done!!!! We had steady 20-30 mph wind blowing all day during the final round with gusts up to 40 mph, yet our team stayed calm and composed, and just marched around the course like it was a breeze!!  (haha—excuse the pun!).  It really wasn’t that easy as the other teams are tough competitors, but we held our own in very difficult conditions and cruised to victory.

Our time in Eastern Oregon (Pendleton) will definitely stand out as a memorable part of our journey this season!!!!  We enjoyed the challenging course (despite the conditions), our “Mexican fiesta” and our spacious hotel rooms the first night after a long road trip.  We then celebrated Megan’s mom’s (Wendy’s) b-day with her family and Jill’s dad (Ron) in “The Hut” for a late lunch/dinner on Saturday afternoon!  Aunt Jenny and Uncle Calvin delivered a delicious German chocolate cake from a local bakery, so that was an added treat!!  Then, the team was surprised by some nice “Easter bags” with goodies after we were done with our rounds on Sunday.  Hmm, I’m beginning to think it’s the “S-factor” that has us kicked into high gear this season—as in “serious sugar!”  🙂

We will also definitely remember the fantastic rainbow that appeared over our van at the completion of the tournament.  It was so enormous and beautiful!  It was a terrific reminder and “sign” for us on Palm Sunday that it is truly a gift to be able to play such a great sport that we love and that we are blessed in so many “wonderful” (W!) ways.

A continuous thank you to all of you who have been providing us with such amazing support!  Grammie Gloria–I almost forgot to mention a thank you to you for making us those last minute PB and J’s (and PB and honey’s) on Saturday!!!  They were perfect (sorry about the honey spilling in the bag!)–thanks so much!!!!  Thanks to Megan’s family and Jill’s dad for coming to Pendleton to cheer us on too!!  So fun having you there!!

Stay tuned for more action in Salem this coming weekend!! Will be fun to finally have a tournament in our neck of the woods!!! 🙂

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1st in Phoenix!!!!!

Irish Record!!

Okay, so we got it done in Phoenix on St. Patrick’s day!!!  Must have been our lucky green hats (see photo!).  So, it’s one tournament—so let’s not get too excited!!!  However, it shows that “we’ve got game” and we continue to improve!!  We beat the #2 ranked team in the nation, Washington Univ at St. Louis!  Boy—are they a solid team of great players—and such nice gals too!  St. Mary’s Indiana is an awesome team as well—but unfortunately they had to leave early on the second day to make their flight, so they were unable to complete the entire 36 hole round.

All three teams participated in a fun clinic for the folks at Westbrook Village on Thursday.  It was nice to give back to our sport and have our players give out the instruction!  Now, they know how it feels to be a “coach!”  It’s a lot of work!!!  🙂

The clinic and practice round was followed by our two day tournament on Friday/Saturday!  It was an AMAZING time in the SUN!!! We felt a bit guilty as we knew it was cold back home, but then not THAT guilty when we were putting on the suntan lotion!!!! We are truly grateful for the nice break to get away—and we enjoyed every minute of it!!!  A storm blew into Phoenix on Saturday night with high winds and rain, but we were done at that point, so escaped it!  Well—not completely—as we did have a bit of a bumpy ride in the friendly skies on Sunday!!!  Our take-off was a quick vertical climb—and for a moment I thought I was stuck on a terrible Space Mountain roller coaster ride!!!!  (Roller coasters are not my thing!)  However, we leveled off and things went smoothly as we landed in beautiful Portland.  There’s no place like home!

Thanks for all the great support from family and friends!!  We appreciate all of you!  A huge THANK YOU too to my “favorite” in-laws, Al and Lola McCloskey!!  Thank you for making it so special for us!!!  Big Al–your announcing on the tee is priceless!!!  Thank you to our shuttle cart drivers too–so appreciative!!!  Of course, a HUGE thank you too to Westbrook Village Golf Club for letting us play at such a fun and beautiful golf course!!!!  It’s really a great place to tee it up!  And last but not least, thank you to Patty and Fred for your help with transporting the team!!  Someday, if we get to ride on a fire truck like our women’s basketball team, you two are definitely on board with us!!!!!

Cheers and Go Bruins!!!!

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P.S.  Photo’s from PLU tournament from a few weeks ago will be up soon!!  Sorry for delays!!!

Spring Season starts in California!!!!

I’m behind in my blogging!  What’s new?!?!  Haha!  Okay, so two weeks ago, our team traveled to Vallejo, CA (via Sacramento airport!) for our first spring tourney!!!  We went up against all D-II California schools (including some ranked teams), and although the competition was very tough, it was an amazing experience and opportunity for us!!  We held our own out there on a very difficult golf course!  It felt so great to play in 70+ degree weather and to shed the layers for shorts/skorts!!!  So fun!!  We knew it was going to be a great trip when we found our rental van and it said “HOT row!”

After the tournament, we went to Megan’s house in Yolo, where her parents, Mike and Wendy had an outdoor BBQ set up for us and lots of family and friends over!!  It was so nice to meet all her family and to be treated in such a special way!!!  Oh–and the potato’s—to die for!!!  We try to watch our carb intake–but those were well worth it!!! 🙂

Thank you to all the fans who came and watched–I didn’t get a picture of everyone–but Whitney’s mom was down on one day as was my brother, sister in-law and niece.  I must say–I was happy I had a new GF hat for my brother as his old GF hat was past the “vintage-looking” stage.  It was “light blue” instead of navy!!!

Check out all the photo’s!!  Go Bruins–we are off and running and spring season is finally here!!!

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Our #2 NW Conference Championship Banner and Trophy are in the House!!!

2011 NWC Championship teams--Track & Field, Basketball (parents representing) and GOLF!

On Friday night, February 17th, our THREE women’s teams who won their NW Conference Championships last year (Track & Field, Basketball AND GOLF!) were honored at half-time of the Women’s home basketball game!!!!!!  Our President, Robin Baker and Athletic Director, Craig Taylor were on hand to introduce each team and present them with their 2011 trophies.  Our new banners were already hung up on the wall (so we didn’t get to hold it up high like this year!), but the three banners stood out as they were decorated with pink ribbons in honor of “PinkZone” campaign at George Fox for breast cancer awareness.  (Note–you can see our banners in background of main photo on the right!)

Speaking of pink, during the games, our team sold hot pink t-shirts to help raise money for breast cancer!!  It was a great cause and a lot of fun!  I think our “hot team” in their “hot pink shirts” is what helped keep the sales moving, as we raised over $400!!!!  Pretty cool!!  Then, during half-time of the men’s game, our senior women athletes were honored (our team helped with the celebration but we don’t have any seniors this year!)!!  It was really quite a night for a lot of well-deserving, dedicated and committed George Fox women athletes!!!!  Congrats to all!

We were also excited to have two of our great alums back from last year, Mandy Cameron and Sarah Askin, to take part in the festivities!!!  Good times!  🙂 We were also very excited to have two of our favorite fans, Bob and Peggy Fowler, also involved in our celebration!!! Thank you Bob & Peggy for all your great ongoing support!!!

Enjoy the pics!!!  MORE coming from our FIRST tourney of the season!!!!  Leaving for sunny Calif in just 2 days!!!!!  Stand by for all the exciting Spring 2012 action from the course!!!!  Don’t forget to follow us and “like” us on Facebook too–“George Fox Women’s Golf team!”  Thanks!

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THREE-PEAT!! NW Conference Fall Classic Champions!!

NW Conference Fall Classic Champions with "Megan's grammy!"

We got the job done!!!  We ended the fall season with a big “W” at the NW Conference Fall Classic Championship!!  Our team played strong, and we are excited about our victory!!  It was an amazing weekend starting with a tailgater celebration with cinnabons, lots of family members, alums and GF fans and ended with a trophy and trick or treat bags full of candy and goodies!!  It doesn’t get much better than that!!

Finally—photo’s!!!  Whoo hoo!!!!  Here you go!!!

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Good Times at Culturame Classic!!!!

Culturame Classic teams at The Reserve GC

We hosted the “Second Annual Culturame Classic” at the Reserve Golf Club in Aloha Oregon on Oct. 14/15.  It’s a beautiful course where Peter Jacobsen’s Fred Meyer Challenge and the Champion’s tour “Tradition” use to be played.  Lots of bunkers!!  Something like 200 of them in total!!!  It was a GREAT time for all the teams!  We had nice tee prizes and tons of snacks!!  Really fun having the opportunity to play such a fun course!  Hawaii Hilo (D-II team) won the team trophy once again.  Our team came in second!  I knew it was going to be a tough challenge playing an Hawaiian team in the city of “Aloha!”  The cards were stacked against us–what can I say!!!  We still had a lot of fun with a lot of teams from our Conference as well as some California schools, Simpson and Biola as well as NW Christian from Eugene, OR!  It made it fun to play a lot of different schools and teams together!!

Thank you to Culturame.com and my special friend, Debra Phillips for helping us make it happen once again!!!!!! 🙂

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A “W” at First Fall Season Conference Event!!!!

On the road to Pacific Inv'l

We played in our first NW Conference tournament, the Pacific Invitational, this past weekend and guess what?  We won!!!!!  Whoo hoo!! Okay–so I’m not one to brag about the team, but I do have to point out one key fact.  We had 5 players in the top 10!!!!  I know–pretty crazy indeed!!!  We are excited, but we aren’t going to get carried away (although we did carry Megan around (see photo in slideshow) after she who won the medalist title in her first NW Conference tourney!  Our goal is to keep “building and growing” as a team and see where this all takes us!!!!  So far, our sonic yellow shirts are taking us to new heights!!!  That’s for sure!!!  It’s definitely easier to spot our players around the course!!!  Our bright blue plaid hats are quite noticeable as well!  We are thinking about combining the two one of these days–so look out–you will definitely need some shades for that!!!

A HUGE thank you to all our families, alums and fans who came out to support us!!!  It was so awesome having “galleries” scattered around the course–including two of our alums—Whitney Clunes and Mandy Cameron!!!  So fun having you gals out to watch!  Lots of GREAT memories over the years at Quail–for sure!!!!  Love the “signs” that Mandy and Tim brought as well–definitely added to the excitement!!!

Okay, you can read the entire story online if you like.  It’s a good one!!!!  Bottom line is that we scored lower as a team on the second day when the conditions were tougher—that’s what made this victory truly an exciting one!!!  Stay tuned as we continue our journey up to Olympia Washington next week to play in St. Martin’s Invitational!!!  Go Bruins!!!!

Season “Kick off” at Notre Dame!!!

Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame!

We “kicked off” our 2011-’12 season in South Bend (Notre Dame!), Indiana earlier this week in the O’Brien National Invitational, playing against some of the top teams in the nation (D-III) at Notre Dame’s home golf course (The Warren Course).  Basically, nine of the ten schools participating are ranked in the top 11 in the pre-season coaches polls (including us at #11) !!  It was like a “mini Nationals” right out of the gate!!

We arrived with some nervous excitement, and a few new freshmen 🙂 but we were ready to take on the challenge after some inspiration from “Touchdown Jesus!”  The mural is stunning on Notre Dame’s library, and we had a good time taking a ton of pictures next to it as well as touring the beautiful campus!  We even found some “red suited guy” who agreed to have his picture taken with us next to the statue of Moses (see slideshow!).  Not sure exactly what that was about—but he definitely added to the “campus scene!”

Our practice session and round was a lot of fun on Saturday as more and more of the teams arrived to the course.  We arrived FIRST (always a good sign!!) and we felt good that we had a chance to get in a little “extra” work!!!

We came out  on Day One in our new “sonic yellow” Nike shirts, and showed that we were definitely the BRIGHTEST team!!!  We got noticed before we teed off, but also AFTER we finished as well!!!  We fired a 323 team score which was just 8 strokes off of first, and we were tied for fourth!!!  It was pretty thrilling—especially since 3 of our players had never played the Warren course before (except practice round), and many teams had several returning players—which makes a big difference!

On Day Two,  we hung in there and fought our hardest despite being in a different ‘zone’ than everyone else!!!  Remember, we traveled the furthest—3 times zones whereas most teams were either in their same timezone or just one timezone different.  Thus, we were hitting balls at “4:30am” West Coast time and teeing it up at “5:30am”  while most of you were probably still sleeping1!!  Haha!!!  We handled it well though and stayed consistent, shooting a team score of 326.  Another team had a really hot round, and we fell a little short of the team we were tied with, but our consistency was definitely there!  We finished in 6^th place, and not that far off of first!!  It was a great start to our new season, and we showed everyone that we are not only “bright” but that we belong!!!

The experience was FANTASTIC!!!  We learned so much and we can’t wait to bring it to the next tournament in another week!   We will take what we learned and keep building.  Note:  We also learned not to follow my GPS directions to the Chicago airport as we almost missed our flight home!!!  Haha!

Stay tuned for all the excitement this year!  I’ll try my best to update the blog—although I’m already a bit behind!!   Thank you for your patience!!! This has been a hectic time getting ready for such a big trip just one week after the start of school!!!!  Also–the hardest thing was leaving two players behind!  We have two other AWESOME players on the team–that you’ll be seeing soon–Whitney and Laura!!!  Will do double the photo’s on them–as we want you to get to know our entire team!!!!!!

Check out the pics and Go Bruins!!!!

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NCAA National Championship again!!!

2011 NCAA Nat'l Championship

For the second year in a row, our team made it to the NCAA National Championships!!!!!!  Once again, it was in Florida at Mission Inn Resort, about 40 minutes west of Orlando!!  The weather was similar to what we experienced last year–hot and humid–and we believed going in that we had a very good chance at competing for the title (especially after our strong spring season!).  Unfortunately, the course got us the first day!!!  It’s a challenging course–and not only can the alligators bite–but so can the bunkers, water hazards and tricky putting greens!!!  We came back super strong the second day with the SECOND BEST round of any team—but it wasn’t quite enough.  We ended up in 12th (in the nation!!!) but we learned more of what’s needed to compete at the highest level!  The knowledge that we gained will be invaluable to our program going forward!!

We are motivated for Fall Season to begin!!!!  Stay tuned for exciting news and updates!!!!