EWU’s Golf team competed in the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational on Oct. 13 and 14 in Tacoma Country & Golf Club in Tacoma, Washington.

According to goeags.com, EWU’s golf team ended with a total score of 972 (330-322-320), placing 12th out of 13 schools.

Brenda Howe, head coach of the golf team, said this week for golf was rough and that this was a time of great emotional adversity.

Howe also said that “isolation” from other players may have damaged the team’s ability to play golf.

“With golf, the team does not interact with each other while they are competing,” said Howe.

“They are paired with other players from other teams, and do not play with any teammates. So it’s a lot different for us in regard to ‘feeding off’ of and interacting with each other. The girls don’t know how a single player is doing or even know how the team is faring until the end of the round.”

Marissa Borja, a sophomore golfer on the travel team for EWU, also commented on the frustrations faced at the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational and said that despite her golf experience, this course was very difficult to get a good shot on.

“During the practice round, I felt confident and was hitting it well around the greens,” said Borja. “Come tournament day, I was off to good start, but I found myself making the errant shots that could have been avoided. Such as counting those double bogeys.”

Borja also said that this, in turn, adversely affected the team greatly.

“We had a rough start to our 36-hole day,” said Borja. “It definitely was not our best of rounds, but we did put in a fight. Tacoma Country and Golf Club is a beautiful and challenging course, and you have to play the right shots or you will find trouble. On a course like that, course management is crucial.”

Maddie Dodge, who is also a sophomore on the travel team, expressed similar thoughts about the course and how it was indeed a setback to both the team’s skill and morale.

“Our team just wasn’t able to figure out how to set ourselves up off the tee,” said Dodge. “I think that’s what really hurt us. We gave it our best effort as always but it just didn’t turn out as good as we would have liked.”

Howe said that after this tournament, there is much work to be done for improvement.

“I think it’s safe to say we didn’t reach any goals,” said Howe. “We need to improve on our focus and the mental aspect of the game. We had too many hiccups this week that cost us a lot of unnecessary strokes. This was a really tough course, and it required constant management as well as execution of precise shots, and the lack of precision was definitely noticed this week.”

Eastern’s golf team has certainly faced a tough obstacle this last tournament, but Borja said that despite the disappointing performance at Pat Lesser Harbottle, the team is still strong.

“Our team is capable of great things,” said Borja. “We are all great players and we all know of the talent that we are capable of. What we need to do is focus on how we react to those tough situations we are put in and that will make us even stronger players all around.”