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The University of Wyoming’s Molly Black faces challenges in getting ready for the golf season in the frigid temperatures of Laramie.
NCAA photos
Some locals prepare in cold conditions
A pair of college golfers from Central Oregon brave cold weather to prepare for the season
By Zack Hall / The Bulletin
Published: February 24. 2010 4:00AM PSTMolly Black recently got in her first round of golf of the season.
Black is a former standout player at Bend’s Summit High School and is currently a junior on the University of Wyoming women’s golf team. And this time of year, there are not a lot of green fairways to be found in icy Laramie, home of the Wyoming campus.
The Laramie golf course on which the Cowgirls practice in the fall typically does not open until middle to late April, Black says. But for a day earlier this month, the Wyoming golf team headed east about 50 miles to play nine holes in warmer Cheyenne.
The temperature that day was about 19 degrees and the wind was blowing, Black recalls. Cheyenne is hardly Maui, but the frozen turf there at least lacked a blanket of snow.
And when you are a golfer stationed in a cold climate this time of year, you practice when you get the chance.
“It was interesting, but we’ll take it,” says Black. “We do what we can.”
Like Black, Natalie Weber knows a little something about preparing for a golf season in awful (at least for golfers) conditions. Weber, a former Bend High golfer, is now a senior at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.
Both Weber and Black are usually stuck indoors to work on their golf game over the winter.
They both play NCAA Division I golf for schools located in cities at high elevation. The average daily temperature in January in Ogden is 26 degrees. In Laramie, it’s 20.
February is not much warmer: 33 degrees in Ogden, 23 in Laramie.
Not exactly ideal conditions for a high-level golfer. Or any golfer, for that matter.
Weber and her Weber State golf team are sometimes forced to travel just to practice. The Wildcats usually travel in January or February to St. George, Utah, or north to drier Twin Falls, Idaho.
In January, the team made the two-hour drive to Twins Falls to play 27 holes in frigid conditions.
“It was freezing, but there was no snow and the course was open,” says Weber, a microbiology major. “If there is no snow, you better get out and play.”
Despite the challenges of playing college golf in extreme climates, both Weber and Black have become strong college players.
During the fall portion of the 2009-10 college golf season, Black set a Wyoming school record with a three-round total of 1-under-par 215 and shot a second-round 68 that also was a school record. She leads the team in scoring average this season.
Weber is the senior leader on a young Weber State team and posted the low score for the Wildcats in two of five fall tournaments, including a 13th-place individual finish out of 89 golfers in a California tournament in November.
But the important stretch of the college golf season is the spring season, which tees off in March for both Bend golfers.
Black says that as a freshman she would be lucky to shoot an 84 in her first round during the spring season.
But with experience comes comfort when awaking her golf game out of a winter hibernation.
One crucial aspect of performing well out of the gate in the spring is knowing the difference between simply banging a bucket of balls around off a mat and strategically working on fundamentals.
“My coach always says that you have to practice to come out of the fieldhouse, and that’s making sure that your stance is right, your ball position, your grip, and everything,” says Black, a journalism major. “If you can fine-tune all of that indoors, then you will be fine when we actually get on real grass.”
In lieu of on-course practice, both Weber and Black say they focus on physical conditioning in the winter. They both putt indoors on artificial grass. And at the fieldhouse on the Wyoming campus, Black says, golfers can often be seen using roof panels as target practice on certain shots.
Both teams also implement electronic golf simulators, which helps golfers gauge swing speed and spin.
But physical training is key, according to Weber.
“We do a lot of physical training,” Weber says. “We have a physical trainer that we go to once a week, and she kind of gives us exercises that we do on our own a couple of times a week to keep our backs flexible and working on endurance-type things.
“Thirty-six holes (in a day, common in college golf tournaments) is just a marathon. And you just have to try to get your body ready for that again.”
All the training and simulation in the world cannot replace experience on the golf course, though.
One of the perks for college golfers, especially those in chillier locations, is that often the tournaments in which they play are staged in warm climates.
This year, Wyoming kicks off its spring season March 8 in Las Vegas. Weber State tees it up a week later in Hawaii.
But Black and Weber won’t be spending much time at the craps table or sunning on the beach.
“We take the first tournament really seriously as far as our practice round,” Black says. “We hit every shot you could ever imagine because we haven’t been able to. Our first practice round of the spring season is usually a good five or six hours long because it has to be.”
Touch around the greens is the last thing to come, Weber says.
“Coach really is adamant to hit as many 50-yard, 20-yard, 30-yard shots as you can,” she says. “Because you can’t really feel that very well on a mat or into a simulator. So we really focus on chipping as much as possible and putting as much as possible during those practice rounds.”
All this preparation has Weber and Black chomping at the bit to get back to the course.
“One of the girls has already started a countdown, because we are so excited to go to Hawaii,” Weber says.
Black, who hopes to become a golf instructor after college, offers words of wisdom to all golfers: Playing well in the spring really comes down to seizing any opportunity to play, even if it means braving arctic temperatures in Cheyenne.
“If there is anything that anybody can do is, do what we do: Take advantage of the days that are warm enough to tolerate,” says Black, “even if that means that you are in five layers (of clothing) and a stocking cap. If you can be out there hitting on real grass and swinging, take advantage of it, because that’s the only way you are going to get better when the weather is actually nice.”
And wanting to play well in warm weather is something that college golfers and we mere hackers all have in common.
Zack Hall can be reached at 541-617-7868 or at zhall@bendbulletin.com.
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