The recent wave of warm weather has had many college students out walking the streets and sitting at the Union enjoying the heat. For the Wisconsin women’s golf team, the warm weather has allowed them to walk the courses for the first time this year in practice.
Already three tournaments into their spring season, the team is getting primed for a run through the Big Ten championship and into the NCAAs.
The young team has improved in each of the three tournaments it has participated in this spring and comes off of a fifth-place finish out of 19 teams at Baylor University’s Tapatio Springs Shootout.
First-year Badgers coach Todd Oehrlein attributes his team’s continued improvement to the work ethic of all the members of the team. He feels that because the women have a real commitment to the program, they have overcome their youth and are a contender for the Big Ten title despite having four underclassmen as regular contributors.
The lone senior on the squad, Malinda Johnson, is a solid golfer who is leading the team by example.
Johnson is having a record-breaking season for the Badgers. Going into this weekend’s tournament at Indiana, she has been named Big Ten Golfer of the Week three times this year, most recently after the Tapatio Springs tournament, where she finished first in the field of 113.
Three times she has ended winning or tied for the lead at a tournament’s end, and only once this year has she ended up outside of the top ten. Even in that tournament, according to her coach, she was in contention, but had a few bad swings, which dropped her into a tie for 13th.
“She’s having as good a season as any Wisconsin golfer ever,” Oehrlein said.
Johnson has put up the numbers to support her coach’s bold statement. Johnson’s scoring average (73.7) is almost 2.5 strokes under the single season Wisconsin scoring record of 76.03 set by Katie Connelly in 2001-02.
But it was not Johnson’s incredible play that earned the team an impressive fifth-place finish in Texas; instead, it was a collective effort by the underclassmen combined with Johnson’s individual victory that ensured the quality showing.
Two sophomores, Lindsay McMillan and Jackie Obermueller, and two true freshmen, Nicole Morse and Carissa Werlinger, combined with the senior standout Johnson to place the team in fifth.
McMillan finished in a tie for 19th, and Obermueller shot a collegiate low of 73 in the second round to propel the team from tenth on the first day into the top five on days two and three. Coach Oehrlein has been impressed by the transition Morse and Werlinger have made from high school to the collegiate level. Morse sits third on the team in scoring average at 79.7 after seven tournaments between the fall and spring seasons.
This weekend’s tournament at Indiana and the tournament at Purdue on the weekend of April 17th and 18th will serve as another training ground for these young golfers as they get ready for the Big Ten tournament and the NCAA qualifiers.
The consistent improvement over the first three tournaments of the spring season leaves Coach Oehrlein optimistic about his team’s chances over the last tournaments of the year.
Oehrlein said he’d like to see his team “peak at the end of the season” and have a strong showing over the last five tournaments of the season.
The development of the underclassmen and the continued strong play of Malinda Johnson will be the key to a strong showing in those five tournaments.
Because of the strong work ethic and deep commitment to the team that his players have shown, Oehrlein believes that his team can be successful this year and for years to come.
