Sept. 8, 2005
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Sept. 7, 2005
The New Mexico women’s golf team opens its 2005-06 season Monday at the seventh annual Ptarmigan/Ram Fall Classic in Fort Collins, Colo. The 54-hole event will be played at the Ptarmigan Country Club and hosted by Colorado State. CSU is coached by former Lobo Angie Hopkins. Live stats of the entire tournament will be available at www.GolfStat.com. This is the first time UNM has participated in this tournament.
LAST YEAR’S PTARMIGAN – Colorado State claimed team honors a year ago, firing a three-day total of 876 to hold off Colorado and San Jose State by 26 strokes. Individually, Fresno State’s Laura Luethke led all golfers with a 213 while Colorado’s Hannah Hoch came in second at 215.
ADDING TO THE CASE – Possibly the favorite to win the tournament in Fort Collins, the Lobos are gunning for their 13th team title since 2001.
THE LOBO LINEUP – Head coach Jackie Booth will travel with a neophyte fivesome made up of one junior (Ashley Rollins), two sophomores (Giselle Claux and Alexandra Phelps) and two freshmen (Mikaela Backstedt and Py Bengtsson).
ROLLINS OFF TO TORRID START – Junior Ashley Rollins showed last week that she is ready for the season, firing a UNM Championship Course record 8-under-par 65 during a qualifying round for the season-opening tournament. Rollins is a two-time all-conference performer and was the 2004 Mountain West Freshman of the Year.
FROM COACH Jackie Booth – “We’re a young group but I’m excited to see them perform. We’re the highest ranked team going into the tournament at Colorado State. That means we expect to win. This is really a tournament we entered late in the summer. We were supposed to play at the NCAA Preview at Ohio State, but the course is under construction.”
UPCOMING GOLF CLINICS – The Don Chalmers “Golf Clinics for Women” series is one of the opportunities the Lobos have to give service to a very generous community. This fall’s clinics, which are free and held at the UNM Championship Course, will be Saturday, Sept. 3 and Sunday, Sept. 19 from 10-noon, and Saturday, Sept. 24 from 10-11 a.m. The world famous Lobo sidewalk sale will be held on the last clinic (Sept. 24) from 9-10 a.m. and 11-noon. Since the program’s inception, the Lobo players and coaches have taught over 400 of Albuquerque’s growing community of women golfers.
OUTSTANDING IN THE CLASSROOM – The New Mexico women’s golf team posted the third best GPA in the nation in 2004-05 with an outstanding 3.628 cumulative mark. UNM placed five student-athletes (Giselle Claux, Kailin Downs, Alexandra Phelps, Christina Spence and Ashley Rollins) on the National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA) Scholar Team released earlier in the summer. South Carolina won the inaugural NGCA award with a 3.752 GPA. The brand new award recognizes the women’s collegiate golf program with the highest collective average team GPA.
SEASON OUTLOOK – A solid core of veterans and newcomers will join forces for the 2005-06 New Mexico women’s golf team as the Lobos look to get back to the NCAA Championships and maintain the program’s visibility in the national spotlight. UNM was ranked in the top 20 all of last season en route to winning two tournament titles and earning a 13th consecutive berth in the NCAA Regionals. This season, the Lobos – who have won an impressive 12 tournaments the past four seasons – are expecting to build on that number and continue the success of year’s past.
Four golfers return from last season’s team, including all-conference selections Christine Fernandez and Ashley Rollins. Sophomore Giselle Claux gained valuable experience in her first year of eligibility, starting in six tournaments, while fellow sophomore Alexandra Phelps earned a spot in the lineup four times her freshman season.
Four freshman round out the roster. Mikaela Backstedt and Py Bengtsson both hail from Sweden, Morgan Grantham is a Kingman, Ariz., native, and Glynnis Price is out of Shiprock, N.M.
“I foresee Christine, Ashley, Giselle and Alexandra being our core this season,” said UNM head coach Jackie Booth, “and the freshman knocking as many out of the lineup as they can. I would like to see a lot of rotation within our lineup in the fall just to get a good feel overall for our best team chemistry.”
RETURNING GOLFERS – Fernandez, the lone senior on the team, earned All-Mountain West Conference accolades last season for her 75.26 average, good for fourth best in the league. The Las Vegas, Nev., native transferred from the University of Tulsa after one year – where she earned All-WAC honors – and started in all but one tournament at UNM her sophomore season. Fernandez showed promise in her first year as a Lobo, but stepped up even more her junior campaign, establishing herself as one of the top golfers in the conference. She tied for fifth at the NCAA Preview, placed fourth at the MWC Championships and finished the year ranked No. 71 in the country.
“Being a senior, I think Christine can be a key player and leader,” said Booth. “She had a great fall last year so we know she has the talent necessary for our team to be successful.”
Another veteran Booth is counting on is Rollins, a junior from Austin, Texas. Rollins, the 2004 Mountain West Freshman of the Year, garnered All-MWC honors for the second straight year after tying for fourth at the conference championships, a career best. Following her sensational freshman year, a season in which she set the UNM freshman scoring average with a 74.62 mark, earned all-league accolades and closed the year ranked No. 52 in the nation, she was named a preseason All-American heading into her sophomore campaign. Although Rollins finished 2004-05 with the seventh-best scoring average in the MWC and was ranked among the top 130 in the country, she is looking for even more entering this fall.
“Ashley is going to do some good things for us this year,” Booth said. “She has all the talent in the world, and she’s capable of accomplishing a lot for us. Ashley’s a workhorse who demands perfection. She had a great summer and is ready to go.”
Claux, who redshirted in 2003-04, emerged as a mainstay in the lineup her first season of action, starting in six tournaments and ranking 19th in the Mountain West with a 78.19 average. The Lima, Peru, product came alive at the Collegiate Match Play Championships in November, winning all four of her matches in the No. 5 position against Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and UNLV. In her first Mountain West Championships appearance, Claux placed a season-best 16th.
“Giselle is another player who had a great summer,” Booth said of Claux, who played in the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the Women’s TransNational. “She stayed here a majority of the summer and competed in several tournaments in the United States. She chose to stay and work on her game, which shows how determined she is to succeed. Giselle’s a very committed person. I’m real excited to see what she can do this season.”
Phelps, a sophomore from Albuquerque, contributed to her hometown Lobos immediately, starting in four tournaments her freshman year. She helped the Lobos to a tournament championship at the Gamecock Classic, placing a season-high ninth. Phelps finished the season ranked 23rd in the MWC with a 79.93 average. This past summer, she tied for second at the Albuquerque City Women’s Amateur Golf Championship.
“Alexandra gained some valuable experience this summer competing in tournaments across the country, including the Amateur Public Links,” stated Booth. “It gave her some national experience as well as some confidence. She played for us when we won the Gamecock Classic, and for a freshman to experience that is huge in golf, so she knows what it takes to succeed. We expect her to be a mainstay in the lineup this season.”
NEWCOMERS – The four newcomers – Backstedt, Bengtsson, Grantham and Price – will have a chance to qualify for the lineup every tournament. Booth is looking for someone to emerge from the group after fall competition and enter the starting lineup on a consistent basis for the spring season.
Backstedt and Bengtsson are two talented golfers with international experience. Both hail from Sweden and have played in numerous tournaments throughout Europe.
Backstedt, a native of Hollivken, played on the Swedish National team and was a member of the European Championship girls team in 2004.
Bengtsson, from Gavle, attended the Swedish National Golf High School. Her team claimed the Swedish National Junior Club team championship in 2003 and 2004.
While half of the newcomers are from Europe, the other two are more familiar with the Southwest. Grantham was named the Most Valuable Player on her high school team in Kingman, Ariz., all four years. Price, also state champion senior year from Shiprock, N.M., has played in several tournaments in the summer in addition to her high school experience, most notably in the 2004 Junior Girls America’s Cup, and 2005 A-AAA state champion.
SCHEDULE – Coach Booth, who has consistently sent the Lobos to the top tournaments in the nation during her tenure, will do more of the same in 2005-06.
The fall schedule is less busy than year’s past, with UNM competing in just four tournaments. The Lobos open up play at the Ptarmigan/Fall Classic Sept. 12-13 in Fort Collins, Colo., before hosting the 27th annual Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invitational Sept. 26-28 at the UNM Championship Course. This year’s McGuire features 18 teams, including national powers California, Ohio State, Pepperdine and USC.
Three weeks later, New Mexico travels down I-25 to compete in the Price’s “Give’ Em Five” New Mexico State Intercollegiate in Las Cruces. The Lobos close the fall season looking to three-peat at the Landfall Tradition Oct. 29-31 in Wilmington, N.C.
The spring season is a different story as the Lobos participate in five tournaments prior to the Mountain West Championships. The first two tournaments will be a difficult task – the Regional Challenge (Feb. 13-15) in Palos Verdes, Calif., and the Wildcat Invitational (Feb. 20-21) in Tucson, Ariz., feature many of the top teams in the country.
UNM will then embark on a two-week trip during Spring Break, competing at the UNLV Spring Invitational March 13-15 and the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational March 21-22 in Kaneohe, Hawai’i.
After the Hawai’i trip, the Lobos have the fortune of playing on the course of the MWC Championships prior to the event. The host course – Sunbrook in St. George, Utah – is also home to the BYU Dixie Classic April 3-5. After playing Sunbrook in early April, the Lobos will head back April 20-22 for the conference championships.
UNM will look to play in its 14th consecutive postseason during the NCAA Regional Championships May 12-14. The NCAA Championships are set for May 23-26 at the Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio.
“The whole idea in setting up the fall schedule was to get our players some early success,” Booth said. “I wanted to give ourselves a chance to do well in the fall and gain some confidence heading into the spring, because our spring schedule is very tough.”
Although six of the eight golfers on the roster are underclassmen, Booth sees potential for success this season from this promising group of players.
“I feel good heading into the season,” said Booth, “especially about our numbers. After losing a freshman last season, I really understood how important roster depth is. Having eight players is really going to help, compared to six last season. I’m real excited about the prospects for this season. In the short term, I see success, and in the long term, we’re building our core for 2008, when we host the NCAA Championships.”