Coach Megan Menzel is proud of the the Hawkeyes’ work in the off-season.
by Jake Mosbach
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As the members of the Iowa women’s golf team assembled for their annual picture day at the Hoak Family Golf Complex on Tuesday, a sense of excitement accompanied them, for one simple reason.
The off-season is finally over.
In a little more than two weeks, the team will hit the greens at Finkbine to open the regular season in the Diane Thomason Invitational. The tournament will begin Sept. 12.
While an off-season has the potential to send athletes into lackadaisical and, at times, lazy frames of mind, Iowa head coach Megan Menzel saw quite the opposite from her team. The golfers participated in summer tournaments all over the country.
“They all played a lot this summer,” Menzel said. “It’s a great time to be able to do that, when you don’t have school or really any other commitment. They all knew they needed to go out and compete as much as they could, and I was proud to see them all do that.
“I just saw a real dedication to playing tournament golf.”
Junior Jessie Sindlinger agreed with the coach.
“We all played in four or five competitive tournaments over the course of the summer,” sher said. “A couple of us even played in an LPGA qualifier that two or three golfers from each Big Ten school got to compete in.”
“That was really great to compete again with all of the Big Ten and some of the best players around,” she said.
Despite the numerous competition opportunities during the summer, Sindlinger said, nerves would still be a factor when the team steps up to the tee for the first time.
It is also very possible for teammates to lose contact and chemistry during a long off-season. However, Menzel said, that was never a problem for her closely knit squad.
“It took effort and desire to on their part to keep that chemistry going [during the off-season] and to really set the tone for the upcoming season,” Menzel said. “It’s going to be fun to put everyone together now, and see where we are as a group, and put together our plan of progression.”
Menzel credited senior leaders Amy Ihm and Briana Midkiff for communicating the team’s visions and goals for the season, as well as promoting togetherness.
Ihm said a new team mantra might be the reason behind the group’s chemistry.
“We’re working with this new slogan, ‘Ready for Impact,’ and we have three branches off of that: performance, community, and team,” she said. “We’re working on all three aspects as hard as we can.
“We all stayed connected so well during the summer, texting or calling before our tournaments to wish each other good luck. Even with our international players, we really worked to keep that going.”
The team’s roster features two golfers hailing from outside the United States: sophomores Jessica Ip, from Ontario, Canada, and Elisa Suarez, from Asturias, Spain.
“I honestly think our chemistry is the best that it’s ever been,” Ihm said.
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