Kristina Shalhoup is a freshman on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted April 20, 2011
I'm back! After a bright and early wake-up this past Friday, Meaghan, Huck, January, and I trekked up to Massachusetts, my home state, for Amherst's Jack Lehman Tournament. (Tea and Jiye would meet us later that night. They were busy kicking academic butt!).
After a Panera pit-stop, we jumped onto Hickory Ridge (the course for the first day of the tournament) for our practice round. We were lucky to have a beautiful, sunny day, which made for a wicked (yes, wicked) fun round! Later that night when the "Core Four" and Huck reconvened for our team meeting, we were all ready to play. Huck only pumped us up further with a great pep-talk and by surprising us with Core Four t-shirts! Unfortunately for the rest of the hotel, you could hear our excited squeals from down the hall!
The next morning, the weather wasn't quite so accommodating as it had been Friday. Nonetheless, we were just as eager. The hand-warmers, rain pants and fleeces came out as we prepared to go out and play. Conditions were tough, but we pushed through it and ended up with a decent day. After day one, we were in fourth place out of 12 teams, but not by much. Tired and hungry... very hungry... we cleaned up and were able to relax and enjoy Amherst's banquet. Then, with full stomachs and easy minds, we prepared ourselves for day two.
We met the second day of the tournament, once again, bright and early. I was particularly excited for day two because instead of playing Hickory Ridge, we would be headed back to The Orchards. We had previously played The Orchards in the fall for Mount Holyoke's tournament, and it quickly became one of my favorite courses in the northeast. The course was the site of the 2004 Women's Open, and it's easy to see why it was chosen. A Donald Ross design, it has a beautiful layout and can prove difficult when you least expect it. Luckily for us, we've found it less and less difficult each time out. Despite the soggy, swampy, post-downpour conditions, we managed to drop 20 strokes from the first day and secure a fourth-place finish.
I have to say, we've had a great season, but it's not quite over. We have one more tournament left, and I'm sure we'll be ending on a good note because that final tournament is our home tournament.
Hope to see you there!
Theresa Apoznanski is a senior on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted March 30, 2011
SPRING TRAINING…what a week! Despite a significant delay getting out of New York on Thursday, we made it to the hotel in one piece by 4am. The craziness of the season had begun. Our week was filled with a lot of golf, a Disney excursion and an afternoon at New Smyrna Beach...pretty much the best things in life. The men had their UAA Championship the first few days, which allowed us women to practice and play after we helped out the coaches. It was an easy transition into the warm weather, but we knew the last four days would be pretty tough. The temperature kept climbing and we made our way north on Monday to Howey-in-the-Hills, where we played the brutal "El Campeon" at Mission Inn. Thankfully, the beach offered us some respite after the round and we spent the evening watching the sunset over the Atlantic.
On Tuesday we headed north again, this time to Disney where we had a match against Ithaca College. All I have to say is that Disney courses are pretty sweet...and we kicked some butt! It was great to see some low scores early in the season, and I think it got everyone back into the tournament mindset. We went back to Mission Inn on Wednesday and then played a quick 18 on Thursday before we headed back to NYC. While it was sad to leave the warm weather behind, we are all so excited to get the season started again the next weekend at McDaniel.
Great start to our spring season! This weekend was one of the toughest mental golf experiences I have ever had. We might as well have been playing in the North Pole because when we teed off on Saturday the putting greens were as frozen as the tundra. We couldn't even fix our ball marks because the ground was so solid. It took some adjusting on the front nine, but I finally got my game going for the back and got in a solid first-day score. Everyone seemed to have a couple of bad streaks the first day, and we were ahead of Kutztown by only nine strokes.
We had a really good team meeting on Saturday night and I think it motivated us to shoot lower on Sunday. Personally, I was leading by one stroke over a girl who I have been neck-and-neck with for the past three years. I really had to focus to play smart and swing confidently. After a four-hole bogey streak to finish the last two holes on the front nine and the first two holes on the back, I cleaned up my short game to par out on the last seven holes. It felt really good to get my game going and play consistent golf. I came in to the great news that everyone had improved and we were holding onto the lead! But, it wasn't official yet. Kutztown wasn't coming in until later that day, so we were forced to hit the road without knowing if we had won. About two hours into the bus ride we got the phone call that we had officially won our second title of the season...and I had won my sixth individual title!
We couldn't have asked for a better start to the season, and we are pumped to get in some good practice during our weekend off before we head to Vassar in April.
Kristina Shalhoup is a freshman on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted October 23, 2010
So, the end of my first fall on the women's golf team has come. I have to say, it definitely exceeded my expectations.
First off, I have to say that my team definitely wins the prize for being the most fun.. Being on this team was, in a sense, like adopting a little NYU athletic family. We had a lot of laughs during the season, and I think our great team dynamic was part of what led to our successful play.
No doubt about it, we definitely were successful this fall. We finished our season with three second-place finishes and our first-ever tournament win! On top of that, our victory was at the first-ever Division II/III ECAC Championship. NYU will always be the first name on the list of ECAC champions, and hopefully it'll be on that list more than once.
The way we played this fall, I think it will be!
See ya in the spring.
Your favorite freshman,
Kristina
Theresa Apoznanski is a senior on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted October 12, 2010
The past two weekends have been a true test of our team's mental toughness. Over at Cortland CC two week ago, we faced the number one team in the nation, Methodist University. It can be daunting for a young team to play with a program that has been number one for over 10 years.
In the week leading up to the tournament, we talked a lot about how to keep our focus on our own games and not get distracted by our opponents. Mother Nature threw us a curve when both our course-day practices were rained out. We were forced to go into the weekend without seeing a course or putting for five days!
Despite this setback, we were able to put up two solid rounds and secure a second-place finish behind Methodist. I will admit that we left a lot of strokes out there, but I am proud of all the girls for the way they handled this tricky situation. I also have to give a huge shout out to Sarah (Utz) and Kristina (Shalhoup) for playing well and staying focused despite being sick all week.
Our strong finish at Cortland put us in a great mood going into the ECAC Championship this past weekend. With three second-place finishes under our belts this season, we were all patiently waiting for the chance to bring home the gold. The course we played, Blue Herring in Macedon, NY, was in great shape but it was tough. Because it was certainly a "members-knowledge course," we found ourselves in some tricky situations and very frustrated by our higher scores. We had the lead by eight strokes after day one, but St. Lawrence was more than capable of challenging us on Sunday. Again, we focused on keeping a positive and confident mindset. Ultimately, we put up a decent second day score and were able to edge out St. Lawrence by 16 strokes for the team’s first win ever!
Never in my life have I been more proud of this team. The girls have put in hundreds of hours of practice and have sacrificed so much of their college lives for the benefit of this program. We have grown tremendously over the past three years and I know that every single person on this team, coaches and players, wants to make it to the top. As we finish our fall season this weekend with a fun home tournament, we will enter the off-season with a great determination to improve our games and eagerly await the spring season. We are already pumped for our spring break training trip to Florida, and the four tournaments that we have scheduled. I can't wait to see what we will accomplish next.
PS. Thanks to all the parents, friends and boyfriends for driving crazy hours to watch us! We love all of you! (and your cookies, apples and wax lips).
Kristina Shalhoup is a freshman on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted September 30, 2010
Hello again. I'm back with new and exciting news!
It was a great weekend for the NYU women's golf team. We were back in my home state (Massachusetts) for the Mt. Holyoke Invitational. We played at The Orchards, a great course that has been used for many outstanding tournaments, including the 2004 U.S. Women's Open.
We left for MA early Friday morning, making a pit stop to play nine holes at Hampshire Country Club (one of our practice courses). We arrived at The Orchards roughly four hours after finishing our round, went to the range and worked on our putting. Then we went out to take a look at the first nine holes of the course, and I have to say that our preparation definitely paid off.
We woke up bright and early on Saturday to get to our first round. It was a great day to play: sunny, warm and a clear sky. These conditions, our preparation, and a good night's rest helped us to kick butt that day. We came in from our rounds and found out that for the third time this season we'd broken our scoring record! This time it was a solid 315. We had three 70's rounds, which helped to put is in second place going into Sunday's round.
Sunday was another successful day. Although our scores weren't quite as low as they were on Saturday, we still came in with a nice total of 326. This was a huge weekend for us. We came in second out of 13 teams, and in doing so beat out Amherst and U. Albany (both very competitive teams).
To add to the good news, we took home some hardware, excusing us from doing V-ups at 7am on Wednesday morning (we get 100 V-ups for every triple made). Woohoo! But, that wasn't the last of it. We actually received the best news after checking out GolfStat.com, where we found out that we are officially the seventh- best DIII team in the country!
Go NYU!!!!!
Kristina Shalhoup is a freshman on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted September 16, 2010
Hey there! I'm Kristina Shalhoup, one of the rookies on the NYU women's golf team! I'm here to give a new voice to the blog.
I'll start by saying this team works hard! The team began practicing a week earlier than last year. In my opinion, all that practice definitely paid off.
Last Thursday (September 9), we hunkered down for the eight-hour bus ride to our first tournament in Canton, NY (hosted by St. Lawrence University). After multiple movies, a few hours of homework and a good night's sleep, we went out for our practice round Friday. It was nice to get a look at the course, especially for me since I hadn't been there before. Personally, I liked the course a lot. It was pretty similar to the courses I play back home in Massachusetts, which was really nice. We worked with Coach (Matt) Huck on the course, figuring out where the best places to hit it were, looking at the hardest (and easiest) putts on each green, and deciding which clubs to hit on par 3's. We did a good job preparing ourselves; that's what our weekend result showed us.
On Friday morning, we woke up and got breakfast as a team and then watched the 9/11 tribute as a team. That definitely mellowed out the team's overall mood, probably a good thing seeing as we were all pretty anxious to go out and play. Still, we made our way to the course that morning in good spirits, ready to play, ready to win. After a good warm-up on the range and putting green, we finally were shuttled out to our starting holes. And, we came in that day happier than we went out. We set a team record with a total score of 325, putting us in second place behind St. Lawrence!
The next morning we had a bright and early 6:00 am wake-up. However, still excited from the previous day's round, we were ready to go play.
After what seemed like forever, we all gathered in the clubhouse after the round to see how we finished. After a great day for the team as a whole, we found out we set another record with a total score of 318! We remained in second place, allowing us to bring home some hardware!
Despite this excitement, however, the weekend's successes were bumped up a notch higher. Before the tournament, we made a bet with Coach Huck that if we broke 320, he'd have to wear jeggings to practice. Hope they make them in his size.
Theresa Apoznanski is a senior on the NYU women's golf team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010-11 season.
Posted September 13, 2010
After a long pre-season during the final heat wave of summer, the team has shown that our practices have paid off.
We just returned from our first tournament of the season at St. Lawrence, where we finished in second by 10 strokes. Not only did we set, break, and reset a NYU team total on Saturday and Sunday, but we also proved to ourselves that we are ready to tackle the top teams for a spot at the NCAA Championship in the spring.
There is still a lot of work to be done, and the courses we will face during the six weeks of tournaments will test our stamina.
This past weekend certainly started the season off in a positive light. We had great weather on Saturday and some typical fall showers and clouds on Sunday. Each of us was able to keep our mental games in check despite two six-hour rounds and a nine-hour drive!
However, the most exciting part about the weekend was the bet we won with Coach (Matt) Huck: break 320 and he has to wear jeggings at our next practice. Mission accomplished!
Now all that is left is to decide between the dark or light wash!
