June 29, 2022 • 29 mins
In this episode of the Birdie Bunch Podcast, Kennedy walks you through the events leading up to Ole Miss winning the 2021 National Championship. Tune in for a play by play of the Quarter, Semi, and final matches along with a sneak peak of the celebration.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Birdie Bunch is a presentation of I Heart Radio
and the College Athletes Network. Can You dig It? Can
You dig It? You digg Hey everybody, this is Kennedy
(00:38):
Swan and you're listening to The Birdie Bunch on the
College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast so you
never miss a new episode. This can easily be done
via the I Heart Radio app. Also, you can find
me on Instagram at can You dig It, on Twitter
at can You dig It as well or on my
website at www dot Kennedy Swan dot com. Feel free
(00:58):
to fill up my contact form with any suggestions, questions,
or comments of what you might want to see on
the show. So, if you tuned in last week, we
talked about my decision to transfer and take my fifth
year as well. So this episode, we're gonna be talking
about the National Championship, uh kind of what went into it, uh,
(01:18):
preparing for it, you know, kind of the vibes going
into it. I'm gonna walk you through stroke play, all
of match play, and then obviously the final winning match.
So leading up to it, obviously we kind of got
into postseason. Um, we had a good spring. We had
a couple of wins as a team. You know, it
pretty much finished top five. Every event had a couple
(01:39):
of top threes. We were ranked, I believe top ten,
maybe right around tent going into postseason, and maybe even
a little bit higher. But SECS is probably one of
my favorite tournaments as well as my team's tournaments. Every year.
It takes place, um, right around Easter. It's a Graystone
(02:02):
in Birmingham, Alabama. And so we got to SECS and
we played pretty well as a team in stroke play.
I think we're right around uh, third or fourth UM
in first seeding. So for those of you that don't
know SECS, you have three days of stroke play and
then the top eight teams make it to match play
(02:22):
and then um, there's three different rounds to match play,
just like you would have in March Madness bracket. UM.
And so I believe we're the fourth seed and we
played UM the fifth seed, which was I want to say, um, shoot,
who did we play? Um? It'll come back to me.
(02:43):
But anyways, so we get to match play and UM
we ended up being knocked out the first round of
match play, which was extremely disappointing because the year before
we had won SECS and that was kind of our big,
big um UH event that had come to fruition for us.
You know, we had been putting in all this effort
(03:03):
and uh, finally, finally we had won. So we're the
reigning reigning SEC champions, and especially since the year before
it became it had gotten canceled due to COVID um,
we're the two year reigning champions. So for us to
be knocked out first round of match play that was
that was pretty disappointing. So that gave us a little
(03:27):
bit of extra momentum going into regionals UM. And going
into regionals, we had moved up since we had made
it to match play, we had moved up to UM
I think like eight or nine in UH in the rankings,
and so we got the regional site draw that was
um the one at l s U, which I don't
know if you guys followed any of the n C
(03:47):
Double A women's regional sites, but our regional was the
one that got canceled where the top six teams got
immediately sent on two nationals and if you were outside
of the top six, you just you didn't get to
go to Nationals and you didn't have a chance to
make it to Nationals. And so there's all this drama
about the n C Double A's decision to cancel the
(04:07):
tournament UM due to bad weather, and I respected their
decision because the course was underwater. I mean there was
there was literally lakes and ponds, and UM, there were
teams that we're talking about playing it as a part
sixty part three course for one day, and so that
(04:28):
would bring in UM everyone into the field. Being able
to to make it in on a part three sixty course,
which is is just for one day too. For who
gets to play in the National Championship, especially in those
wet conditions, was UM just a little silly. So it
was kind of interesting being at that regional. Lucky, luckily
enough we were UM one of the ones that got
(04:50):
to get the UM that got sent through. And I
felt really bad, you know, I had friends that were
seniors that UM they didn't get to play in a
regional that year. Uh and they were on you know,
and a couple of them got to take their fifth year,
which ended up working out. But UM, anyways, luckily enough
we got sent to Nationals, and Nationals was in Phoenix,
(05:10):
Arizona this last year. UM are more specifically Scottsdale, UM,
a suburb of Phoenix, and so we flew into Phoenix
as a team UM, and we drove over to Scottsdale,
UH to get ready to go walk the course, which
is Gray Hawk. It's there this year and it's there
for the next couple of years as well. UM and
(05:31):
the men compete right after us, So we're typically the
third week of May and the men are the last
week of May. And so we we got to the
resort and it was this amazing, grand, huge hotel with
a huge uh couple Like I think there are four
or five pools, a water slide, a beach, um, a lake,
(05:53):
a golf course like this thing was incredible, like probably
still to this day one of the nicest hotels there
or stayed in. So that was just kind of an
added bonus. I think everyone kind of had in the
back of their minds while like, well, even if we
don't play well this week, it's still a really cool
experience being here. And so as soon as we got there,
UM we went in practiced the next morning at the
(06:17):
course at the hotel, UM and went out and hit balls,
chipped and puttedge just kind of to get used to
the elevation difference coming from Oxford, Mississippi to uh Scottsdale, Arizona.
Which that's something as well that a lot of people
don't necessarily think about. Um when thinking about traveling and
(06:37):
playing in different places, you have to account for elevation differences.
If you're at a higher elevation, then obviously the ball
is going to go further than if you're at sea level.
And so we kind of got and uh an idea
of how that was going to impact our game for
the week and uh impact our distances. And then we
headed over to gray Hawk and got out and started
(07:00):
walk in the course and uh so you normally get
to practice rounds and then one day to walk it,
which just means you go out, you have your yardage
book and you get to kind of look at the
course and see, Okay, maybe I don't want to hit
it here, maybe I want to hit it here. Kind
of have an idea before you even tee the ball
up of where you want to hit it. And if
(07:20):
I'm being honest, me and the team were scared, uh
so scared of gray Hawk when we walked it because
it was extremely intimidating. There's desert everywhere there's not really
much rough. It's really just like fairway bunkers and then desert,
and so if you miss the fairway, there's a pretty
(07:42):
good chance that your ball is going to be in
a bush. And not to mention, which it didn't bother me,
but I bothered a lot of my teammates. Uh, there's rattlesnakes,
coyotes and bobcats out there, and so they were always
scared to go on the desert just to see that,
you know, they might might see a rattlesnake, UM get
bit by one or something like that. So I guess
(08:04):
that was a good motivation not to hit it in
the desert. But as we were walking, each hole just
seemed like it was getting narrower and narrower. And so
going into the practice round, I think a lot of
us were just kind of freaked out that, you know it,
there wasn't really a good place to miss with your driver,
and so it really just off the tea. UM. And
(08:24):
so we went out and we played the first practice
round and actually felt okay about it. UM. I think
that's one thing, um that uh is actually really helpful
to know. If you go walk. Of course, it can
look a lot intimidating than actually playing, a lot more
intimidating than actually playing it because seeing it and thinking
all these negative things and oh, I don't want to
hit it here. I don't want to hit it here.
(08:46):
You know, it's a lot easier when you're actually hitting
the ball and you can see the shots that you
want to hit. Um. Also, Gray Hawk is not the
easiest course to walk. There's a there's some pretty far
walks in between holes, and there's a decent amount of
elevation in So I think that was something to consider
as well going into into the tournament rounds, just knowing like, okay,
(09:07):
best case scenario, we're gonna be out here for eight days,
not including the practice rounds. So in the next segment,
I will be walking you through the first four rounds
of stroke play and the first round of match play
against Texas. So again you're listening to the Birdie Bunch.
I'm Kennedy Swan and this is the College Athletes Network.
(10:08):
Welcome back to the Birdie Bunch on the College Athlete Network.
This is Kennedy Swan. Make sure to subscribe to my
podcast so you don't miss the show. You can also
find me on Instagram at can you dig It, on
Twitter at can you dig It, or on my website
at www dot Kennedy swan dot com. In the last segment,
we talked about, um, the process of getting to our
(10:30):
hotel for the National Championship, the first impressions of walking
to the course or walking the course, and uh, some
of our postseason performance leading up to the National Championship.
So all in all, I would say our vibes after
after the practice round, we're we're pretty good going in.
You know, I think the team liked the setup. Um.
(10:51):
I know, I like the setup. I like desert golf,
especially because the ball goes a little bit further. Um,
you feel like you're kind of hitting your driver a mile,
which is nice. Um. Yeah, we we all felt pretty
good going in. You know. Obviously our goal was kind
of to take it one shot at a time and uh,
to just our first goal was to make the first cut.
And so the format of National or of n C
(11:14):
double as is three rounds of stroke play and then
UM and then cut and then a fourth round of
stroke play and then another cut. So I think it's uh,
they cut to the top fifteen teams after the first
three rounds and then they cut to the top eight
after the fourth round, and then they send it to
(11:34):
match play, so it's the top eight teams so UM
and stroke play. Honestly, I did not play very well.
I shot seventy seventy three, seventy four or seventy one,
and each round, you know, I just felt like nothing
was really falling into place. I felt like I couldn't score.
I felt like I was playing so much better than
(11:56):
my my score was reflecting, and it was frustrating. You know,
I was getting very frustrated, and my coaches just kept
telling me, you know, be patient. And it was tough
because one of our our top players at the time,
Ellen Hume, was out with an injury, and so she
actually didn't get to play in UM any well. She
(12:16):
got to play in the first round of stroke play,
and she didn't play very well and her shoulder was
killing her. So the coaches actually pulled her and put
in our sixth person who was a freshman and she
didn't have a lot of experience. So I think, you know,
we're kind of nervous as a team having a freshman
that hadn't really played much before in a tournament that
meant so so much to us, and so my coaches
(12:38):
just kept reminding me, you know, hey, we need your
your score because on a bad day, even if you
shoot seventy five like I did on the first day,
I'm still going to count and so my score is
still gonna account which for college golf, I'm sure most
of you know. But if not, uh, you play five
players and count four scores and so um, you get
to drop your worst score. And so my coaches are like,
(13:00):
even if you go out and play bad, you know,
we're never going to drop your score. Uh, We'll still
be able to count it. And so the last day
I gained a lot more confidence going out there and
shooting seventy one one under. You know, by the end
of the day, end of the round, I really just
wanted to have a one under par. And three of
my teammates actually played really well. They one two of
(13:23):
the sophomores finished top ten and then my uh, one
of my teammates, Julie Johnson, finished top five, which was
her her goal and that was a big accomplishment for her.
So obviously we were all really proud of them. Um.
And then we got to watch Rachel Heck when the
individual individual title, which was really cool because she's a
(13:44):
great girl. I've played a lot with her, She's a
lot of really fun, really high energy. Actually played with
her the first round of stroke play um earlier in
the week, and I think it was just really cool,
especially as a freshman, for her to go out and win.
And she had had a incredible season before anyways, so um,
we were really excited for her. So but once we
(14:04):
finished the fourth round of match or of stroke play,
we went on to match play and we got paired
against Texas, and uh, something that was pretty amusing to
all of us. So, the the Golf channel people, uh,
you know, like the main Golf channel commentators all had
a pool just like you would for like March Madness
or anything else. They had a pool for what teams
(14:27):
would make it to match play, like would make the
first cut, would make it to match play, and then
you know, make it to semifinals and then finals. And
only one out of the six people that did the
pool had us in the top fifteen like to make
the first cut. Well, two people had us in the
(14:47):
in the top fifteen to make the first cut, and
only one person had us making it to match play
like period. So obviously we're pretty much the underdogs going
into this. And so we got paired against Texas, which
we had played them in the east Lake Cup UM
and beat them out to when east Lake, and so
we knew that they were going to be out for blood. Uh.
(15:08):
You know, they were a very top ranked program at
the time. And uh, I got paired against Sophie Guo,
who I also played at east Lake as well, and
I beat her there, and so I think I had
a little bit of confidence going in UM. And again,
like I've said before, I love match play. I don't
know why. UM, I'm guessing it's just because I'm so competitive.
(15:30):
And again, earlier I talked a little bit about that
annoying NAT strategy of just being able to kind of
annoy my opponents and not on purpose, but just go
up to them and be extremely nice and extremely friendly
and talk to them. And you know, the typical matchplay
strategy is to be very quiet, kind of very like
in your in your head, and you know in your
(15:52):
own it's it's a killer, killer exterior mindset. And I
tend to have a very friendly exterior mindset and a
killer into your ear mindset and So I beat Sophie
UH six and five uh in the first round of
match play, and I was feeling really good coming off
of that. Um. I was really happy, feeling like the
(16:15):
team was going to be doing good. You know, you
can kind of tell the team momentum whether you're doing
good or not. I felt good about it. And I
came off and I looked at my teammate Ellen Hume,
and I was like, so, how are we doing? With
like this big, perky smile and expecting good news. And
she looks at me and she goes, well, you did great,
And I'm like, oh no. So I pull out my
phone and I look at the scores and We're down
(16:37):
in every other match at that point, and I'm thinking, okay, well,
maybe if we could flip two and uh two girls
that um, we're kind of um. Two girls that were
supposed to be key matches ended up losing their matches. Um,
which anything can happen in match play. That's that's the
(17:00):
beauty of it. But we were resorted. We had to
resort to two girls that were down in both of
their matches to be able to bring it back to
all square. And so Andrea Lignell one of our our sophomore, um,
one of our sophomores. She was able to bring it
back to all square and went into a playoff, and
we're like, okay, so we got one in the playoff.
(17:21):
We need her to win and smell a saunderby the
freshman that I had mentioned earlier that had no no
real you know, matchplay experience or you know experience at
a national championship, was two down with three to play,
and she ended up being able to square it up
and take it to extra holes as well. And we're
(17:43):
just all sitting there like, oh my gosh, we cannot
believe that this is happening. Because she made a like
fifteen foot birdie put on on sixteen and then a
fifteen foot birdie put on seventeen to take it to
all square, and then on eight seen, Um, they both
have the hole, and so they went to the next hole.
(18:04):
And when I tell you that, me and my teammates
were sprinting around the course, We were sprinting from whole
eighteen green to ten green, back to eighteen green to
ten green, just to be able to catch um, catch
our teammates in this playoff. And so uh, Andrea Lgnell
ends up making like a seven footer on eighteen on
(18:25):
her like twenty feet playoff hole to win the match,
and we're like, okay, so it's now two points Texas,
two points Ole miss, and so we're sitting there sweating
it out, trying to figure out if if Smilla has
what it takes to win this match. And twenty three
holes later, she makes like a clutch four footer to
win the match to send us into the semifinals, and
(18:49):
none of us could believe that that this even happened.
I mean, we were down in all four matches with
like five holes to go and she was able to
clinch this for us. So and then X segment I
will discuss the final two rounds of match play and
kind of how we went through that, and they weren't
nearly as dramatic as the Texas match, but they're still
pretty interesting. So you're listening to the Bertie Bunch and
(19:11):
I'm Kennedy Swan and this is the College Athletes Network.
(19:52):
Welcome back to the Bertie Bunch on the College Athletes Network.
This is Kennedy Swan and be sure to subscribe to
my podcast you don't miss a show. You can also
find me on Instagram at can You dig It, Twitter
at can You dig It, or on my website at
www dot Kennedy swan dot com. So in the last segment,
we talked about our our round of quarterfinals in match
(20:14):
play at the National Championship and how Smilla Saunderby was
able to pull out the winning point in twenty three
holes against Texas. Again, we had no uh not that
we didn't think we were gonna win, but it was
a long shot, UM, And so after that everyone kind
(20:35):
of had a funny feeling of like, Wow, if we
were able to make it through Texas in this fashion,
if we were able to dig deep and pull through
this match, we got to be able to win it
from here. You know. It's kind of like that that
underdog story of UM, it's kind of meant to be
at this point. And so after this match it was
(20:57):
a whirlwind because we were supposed most to tea off
an hour beforehand, just like the other two teams that
were in the quarterfine or in the semifinals did because
they didn't go to extra holes and we did. So
we were an hour behind on our tea time, so
we sprinted up to the pavilion. We did the pairings
real quick UM, which I found out I was playing Vivian,
(21:20):
who who UM is ranked in the top ten at
the time, was ranked in the top ten of the
world Amateur golf rankings, and lucky for me, I didn't
have enough time to pull up her stat or her
ranking to know much about her before I played her,
so I didn't really have time to be intimidated by
UM by her achievements. And so anyway, yeah, we were
(21:41):
playing Arizona in the UM in the the UM semifinals,
and we went out and I opened, UH going four
up in my first four holes against Vivian, and they
had big leaderboards kind of all around the course, UM,
but it was hard to tell because air Zona is
also red and blue, and so whenever I walk up
(22:03):
on a leaderboard to try to see where the score
was at, I could never tell, like which team was which,
And so I had to just tell myself, you know,
have faith, UM, keep doing what you're doing, and then
you know, hopefully the rest of the team will pull
it out. But all you can do is you can
only control what you do. And so UM, Vivian and
I went to seventeen holes, but at the end of
(22:26):
it um or Yeah, we went to sixteen holes and
I won three and two. Um. And then uh, three
of our other four girls won their matches as well.
So we won four and one against Arizona. And then
later that night, like late late at night because we
had teed off so late. Um. Poor Oklahoma State had
(22:47):
to stick around for like an extra hour just to
be able to stay be there for our pairings party. Um.
But we did them. The pairings party at like nine
o'clock at night. And uh, since Oklahoma State was at
the higher seed, they got to throw up the first player,
and so they threw out Maya Stark, and the coaches
(23:08):
put me against Maya, which I think Oklahoma State was
trying to do because the coaches typically like to send
me out first. That way, I don't I don't know why,
but I think that they said, um, you know, I
kind of keep the the energy, um upbeat for the team.
And so I as soon as Oklahoma State said Maya,
I knew I was going to be playing her. And
(23:30):
it was definitely very very intimidating from my side because
she was ranked number three in the world and uh,
she was also Swedish and we have two Swedish girls
on our team that know her pretty well, and they,
I mean they know, like everyone knows, Maya is just
insanely good. And so my coaches immediately afterwards, you know,
(23:51):
I was kind of freaking out, and my assistant coach
came up to me and was like, well, you have
one of two options. You can either suck it up
and go out there and try to beat her, or
you can go out there and just let her win.
And so that kind of that gave me a little
bit of encouragement of, well, I guess if I'm gonna lose,
I'm gonna lose swinging. And so no one really slept
(24:15):
that night. We were um so kind of nervous going
into the final match and just um didn't really know,
you know, what necessarily to expect. But then the big surprises.
We woke up the next morning and it just seemed
like another regular morning, you know. We we went to
Starbucks as a team and got our coffees and got
our breakfast, and um came back to the hotel and
(24:37):
all um hung out in the lobby by the pool,
eating our breakfast, drinking our coffee, just kind of talking
and no one really acknowledged that this is like we're
in the final match of the national Championship, and so
we uh, we all went back and um, we're getting
ready in our rooms and we get out in the
lobby and me and um, my roommate for the week, Ellen, Um,
(25:00):
we're sitting on the bench talking and a rules official
comes up and um, she's got a tattoo on her
ankle of like a big old W And I look
at Ellen and I'm like, I think that's like the
Washington w I was like, I wonder if um, you
know that she went to Washington. And she kind of
overheard us, and she was like, yeah, I got this
because me and my team won a national championship. And
(25:22):
I look at Ellen Hume and excuse my language, but
I go, oh shit. And I completely forgot that we
had made a bet with each other back in April
that if we won a national championship we were going
to get tattoos. And so we realized that morning. We're like,
this is this kind of made it real, like if
we win today, we have to get tattoos. And so
(25:46):
we're in the car and we're kind of talking about
the whole tattoo thing and We've got the windows down
and music blaring, and um, we get to the course
and we're all dancing in the parking lot. Um, I'm
a rebel just for kicks. And everyone kind of knew
that the vibe was just fun, like we're here, like
we might as well enjoy it, we might as well
(26:06):
have fun. Um, And you could kind of tell there
was a difference between Oklahoma States vibe and our vibe.
You know, we're all again like out there having fun, singing,
dancing on the range, and even the Golf Channel commentators
were just saying like, wow, well, miss looks really relaxed today.
And so we went out and Maya and I had
a really extremely competitive match. Um. I was one down
(26:31):
through three and then I got it back to two
up through ten, and then she canned a really long
birdie put on eleven to get it back down her
back to one down, and then she birdied um thirteen,
(26:52):
which is a really difficult part three, and we were
back to all square. And so I was kind of
thinking in my mind, I'm like, Okay, this is her push,
this is her momentum. I need to get the momentum
back in my favor because match play is all about
momentum and having the momentum on your side. And so
the next hole on fourteen, I birdied to get back
to one up, and so we both part fifteen and
(27:16):
sixteen and seventeen. We hit our t shots and Maya
goes for the green and I lay up with a
five iron and this is like a super wide fair way.
I thought, I hit a perfect shot. And I get
up there in my five irons in the rough and
I'm like, I cannot believe this um in this pin
had been in the exact same place for the past
(27:37):
eight days. Because the green, there's only really one place
to put the pen. And so I knew the shot
that I had to hit, and it was extremely hard.
I needed to hit a high soft sixty degree out
of really thick ruff that's gonna land on top of
the ridge and check. And at that point I thought
to myself, Well, all I'm gonna do is just try
to get a get a put at it. If I
(27:57):
get it on top of the ridge, great, If it
comes back down to the bottom, fine, I'll tuput you know,
we can go to eight teen. She can have this
hole and I'll win on eight team. And I hit
the shot, and I and as soon as I hit it,
I'm like, oh no, sit, sit sit. I flew that
way further than I wanted to. And it lands, takes
one hop and rolls up to about a foot and
(28:19):
everyone that was there supporting there was probably like thirty
or forty old miss fans just scream and yell and cheer,
and they knew that was gonna be like the the
thing that just killed Maya's momentum. And so she hits
her chip um from greenside up to like ten ft
(28:40):
and mrs the putt and so I won my match
against Maya, and then Dre comes in behind us and
she sinks a clutch seven ft or to win, and
we're all storming the greens crying, sobbing. Everyone's crying, Like
even the men's assistant coach or the men's head coach,
Chris Molloy that was there is sobbing. Our big donor
(29:02):
Tosh is sobbing. Everyone is just crying because we can't
believe that we just won a national championship. And so,
if you want to hear more about this, about the aftermath,
about the trophy ceremony, about all of that good stuff,
be sure to tune in next week. As always, thanks
for listening to The Bertie Bunch on the College Athlete Network.
(29:23):
Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode and see
you soon. Can you dig it? Can you dig it?
Care you digg The Birdie Bunch is a presentation of
(29:44):
I Her Radio and the College Athletes Network
The Birdie Bunch is a presentation of I Heart Radio
and the College Athletes Network. Can You dig It? Can
You dig It? You digg Hey everybody, this is Kennedy
(00:38):
Swan and you're listening to The Birdie Bunch on the
College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast so you
never miss a new episode. This can easily be done
via the I Heart Radio app. Also, you can find
me on Instagram at can You dig It, on Twitter
at can You dig It as well or on my
website at www dot Kennedy Swan dot com. Feel free
(00:58):
to fill up my contact form with any suggestions, questions,
or comments of what you might want to see on
the show. So, if you tuned in last week, we
talked about my decision to transfer and take my fifth
year as well. So this episode, we're gonna be talking
about the National Championship, uh kind of what went into it, uh,
(01:18):
preparing for it, you know, kind of the vibes going
into it. I'm gonna walk you through stroke play, all
of match play, and then obviously the final winning match.
So leading up to it, obviously we kind of got
into postseason. Um, we had a good spring. We had
a couple of wins as a team. You know, it
pretty much finished top five. Every event had a couple
(01:39):
of top threes. We were ranked, I believe top ten,
maybe right around tent going into postseason, and maybe even
a little bit higher. But SECS is probably one of
my favorite tournaments as well as my team's tournaments. Every year.
It takes place, um, right around Easter. It's a Graystone
(02:02):
in Birmingham, Alabama. And so we got to SECS and
we played pretty well as a team in stroke play.
I think we're right around uh, third or fourth UM
in first seeding. So for those of you that don't
know SECS, you have three days of stroke play and
then the top eight teams make it to match play
(02:22):
and then um, there's three different rounds to match play,
just like you would have in March Madness bracket. UM.
And so I believe we're the fourth seed and we
played UM the fifth seed, which was I want to say, um, shoot,
who did we play? Um? It'll come back to me.
(02:43):
But anyways, so we get to match play and UM
we ended up being knocked out the first round of
match play, which was extremely disappointing because the year before
we had won SECS and that was kind of our big,
big um UH event that had come to fruition for us.
You know, we had been putting in all this effort
(03:03):
and uh, finally, finally we had won. So we're the
reigning reigning SEC champions, and especially since the year before
it became it had gotten canceled due to COVID um,
we're the two year reigning champions. So for us to
be knocked out first round of match play that was
that was pretty disappointing. So that gave us a little
(03:27):
bit of extra momentum going into regionals UM. And going
into regionals, we had moved up since we had made
it to match play, we had moved up to UM
I think like eight or nine in UH in the rankings,
and so we got the regional site draw that was
um the one at l s U, which I don't
know if you guys followed any of the n C
(03:47):
Double A women's regional sites, but our regional was the
one that got canceled where the top six teams got
immediately sent on two nationals and if you were outside
of the top six, you just you didn't get to
go to Nationals and you didn't have a chance to
make it to Nationals. And so there's all this drama
about the n C Double A's decision to cancel the
(04:07):
tournament UM due to bad weather, and I respected their
decision because the course was underwater. I mean there was
there was literally lakes and ponds, and UM, there were
teams that we're talking about playing it as a part
sixty part three course for one day, and so that
(04:28):
would bring in UM everyone into the field. Being able
to to make it in on a part three sixty course,
which is is just for one day too. For who
gets to play in the National Championship, especially in those
wet conditions, was UM just a little silly. So it
was kind of interesting being at that regional. Lucky, luckily
enough we were UM one of the ones that got
(04:50):
to get the UM that got sent through. And I
felt really bad, you know, I had friends that were
seniors that UM they didn't get to play in a
regional that year. Uh and they were on you know,
and a couple of them got to take their fifth year,
which ended up working out. But UM, anyways, luckily enough
we got sent to Nationals, and Nationals was in Phoenix,
(05:10):
Arizona this last year. UM are more specifically Scottsdale, UM,
a suburb of Phoenix, and so we flew into Phoenix
as a team UM, and we drove over to Scottsdale,
UH to get ready to go walk the course, which
is Gray Hawk. It's there this year and it's there
for the next couple of years as well. UM and
(05:31):
the men compete right after us, So we're typically the
third week of May and the men are the last
week of May. And so we we got to the
resort and it was this amazing, grand, huge hotel with
a huge uh couple Like I think there are four
or five pools, a water slide, a beach, um, a lake,
(05:53):
a golf course like this thing was incredible, like probably
still to this day one of the nicest hotels there
or stayed in. So that was just kind of an
added bonus. I think everyone kind of had in the
back of their minds while like, well, even if we
don't play well this week, it's still a really cool
experience being here. And so as soon as we got there,
UM we went in practiced the next morning at the
(06:17):
course at the hotel, UM and went out and hit balls,
chipped and puttedge just kind of to get used to
the elevation difference coming from Oxford, Mississippi to uh Scottsdale, Arizona.
Which that's something as well that a lot of people
don't necessarily think about. Um when thinking about traveling and
(06:37):
playing in different places, you have to account for elevation differences.
If you're at a higher elevation, then obviously the ball
is going to go further than if you're at sea level.
And so we kind of got and uh an idea
of how that was going to impact our game for
the week and uh impact our distances. And then we
headed over to gray Hawk and got out and started
(07:00):
walk in the course and uh so you normally get
to practice rounds and then one day to walk it,
which just means you go out, you have your yardage
book and you get to kind of look at the
course and see, Okay, maybe I don't want to hit
it here, maybe I want to hit it here. Kind
of have an idea before you even tee the ball
up of where you want to hit it. And if
(07:20):
I'm being honest, me and the team were scared, uh
so scared of gray Hawk when we walked it because
it was extremely intimidating. There's desert everywhere there's not really
much rough. It's really just like fairway bunkers and then desert,
and so if you miss the fairway, there's a pretty
(07:42):
good chance that your ball is going to be in
a bush. And not to mention, which it didn't bother me,
but I bothered a lot of my teammates. Uh, there's rattlesnakes,
coyotes and bobcats out there, and so they were always
scared to go on the desert just to see that,
you know, they might might see a rattlesnake, UM get
bit by one or something like that. So I guess
(08:04):
that was a good motivation not to hit it in
the desert. But as we were walking, each hole just
seemed like it was getting narrower and narrower. And so
going into the practice round, I think a lot of
us were just kind of freaked out that, you know it,
there wasn't really a good place to miss with your driver,
and so it really just off the tea. UM. And
(08:24):
so we went out and we played the first practice
round and actually felt okay about it. UM. I think
that's one thing, um that uh is actually really helpful
to know. If you go walk. Of course, it can
look a lot intimidating than actually playing, a lot more
intimidating than actually playing it because seeing it and thinking
all these negative things and oh, I don't want to
hit it here. I don't want to hit it here.
(08:46):
You know, it's a lot easier when you're actually hitting
the ball and you can see the shots that you
want to hit. Um. Also, Gray Hawk is not the
easiest course to walk. There's a there's some pretty far
walks in between holes, and there's a decent amount of
elevation in So I think that was something to consider
as well going into into the tournament rounds, just knowing like, okay,
(09:07):
best case scenario, we're gonna be out here for eight days,
not including the practice rounds. So in the next segment,
I will be walking you through the first four rounds
of stroke play and the first round of match play
against Texas. So again you're listening to the Birdie Bunch.
I'm Kennedy Swan and this is the College Athletes Network.
(10:08):
Welcome back to the Birdie Bunch on the College Athlete Network.
This is Kennedy Swan. Make sure to subscribe to my
podcast so you don't miss the show. You can also
find me on Instagram at can you dig It, on
Twitter at can you dig It, or on my website
at www dot Kennedy swan dot com. In the last segment,
we talked about, um, the process of getting to our
(10:30):
hotel for the National Championship, the first impressions of walking
to the course or walking the course, and uh, some
of our postseason performance leading up to the National Championship.
So all in all, I would say our vibes after
after the practice round, we're we're pretty good going in.
You know, I think the team liked the setup. Um.
(10:51):
I know, I like the setup. I like desert golf,
especially because the ball goes a little bit further. Um,
you feel like you're kind of hitting your driver a mile,
which is nice. Um. Yeah, we we all felt pretty
good going in. You know. Obviously our goal was kind
of to take it one shot at a time and uh,
to just our first goal was to make the first cut.
And so the format of National or of n C
(11:14):
double as is three rounds of stroke play and then
UM and then cut and then a fourth round of
stroke play and then another cut. So I think it's uh,
they cut to the top fifteen teams after the first
three rounds and then they cut to the top eight
after the fourth round, and then they send it to
(11:34):
match play, so it's the top eight teams so UM
and stroke play. Honestly, I did not play very well.
I shot seventy seventy three, seventy four or seventy one,
and each round, you know, I just felt like nothing
was really falling into place. I felt like I couldn't score.
I felt like I was playing so much better than
(11:56):
my my score was reflecting, and it was frustrating. You know,
I was getting very frustrated, and my coaches just kept
telling me, you know, be patient. And it was tough
because one of our our top players at the time,
Ellen Hume, was out with an injury, and so she
actually didn't get to play in UM any well. She
(12:16):
got to play in the first round of stroke play,
and she didn't play very well and her shoulder was
killing her. So the coaches actually pulled her and put
in our sixth person who was a freshman and she
didn't have a lot of experience. So I think, you know,
we're kind of nervous as a team having a freshman
that hadn't really played much before in a tournament that
meant so so much to us, and so my coaches
(12:38):
just kept reminding me, you know, hey, we need your
your score because on a bad day, even if you
shoot seventy five like I did on the first day,
I'm still going to count and so my score is
still gonna account which for college golf, I'm sure most
of you know. But if not, uh, you play five
players and count four scores and so um, you get
to drop your worst score. And so my coaches are like,
(13:00):
even if you go out and play bad, you know,
we're never going to drop your score. Uh, We'll still
be able to count it. And so the last day
I gained a lot more confidence going out there and
shooting seventy one one under. You know, by the end
of the day, end of the round, I really just
wanted to have a one under par. And three of
my teammates actually played really well. They one two of
(13:23):
the sophomores finished top ten and then my uh, one
of my teammates, Julie Johnson, finished top five, which was
her her goal and that was a big accomplishment for her.
So obviously we were all really proud of them. Um.
And then we got to watch Rachel Heck when the
individual individual title, which was really cool because she's a
(13:44):
great girl. I've played a lot with her, She's a
lot of really fun, really high energy. Actually played with
her the first round of stroke play um earlier in
the week, and I think it was just really cool,
especially as a freshman, for her to go out and win.
And she had had a incredible season before anyways, so um,
we were really excited for her. So but once we
(14:04):
finished the fourth round of match or of stroke play,
we went on to match play and we got paired
against Texas, and uh, something that was pretty amusing to
all of us. So, the the Golf channel people, uh,
you know, like the main Golf channel commentators all had
a pool just like you would for like March Madness
or anything else. They had a pool for what teams
(14:27):
would make it to match play, like would make the
first cut, would make it to match play, and then
you know, make it to semifinals and then finals. And
only one out of the six people that did the
pool had us in the top fifteen like to make
the first cut. Well, two people had us in the
(14:47):
in the top fifteen to make the first cut, and
only one person had us making it to match play
like period. So obviously we're pretty much the underdogs going
into this. And so we got paired against Texas, which
we had played them in the east Lake Cup UM
and beat them out to when east Lake, and so
we knew that they were going to be out for blood. Uh.
(15:08):
You know, they were a very top ranked program at
the time. And uh, I got paired against Sophie Guo,
who I also played at east Lake as well, and
I beat her there, and so I think I had
a little bit of confidence going in UM. And again,
like I've said before, I love match play. I don't
know why. UM, I'm guessing it's just because I'm so competitive.
(15:30):
And again, earlier I talked a little bit about that
annoying NAT strategy of just being able to kind of
annoy my opponents and not on purpose, but just go
up to them and be extremely nice and extremely friendly
and talk to them. And you know, the typical matchplay
strategy is to be very quiet, kind of very like
in your in your head, and you know in your
(15:52):
own it's it's a killer, killer exterior mindset. And I
tend to have a very friendly exterior mindset and a
killer into your ear mindset and So I beat Sophie
UH six and five uh in the first round of
match play, and I was feeling really good coming off
of that. Um. I was really happy, feeling like the
(16:15):
team was going to be doing good. You know, you
can kind of tell the team momentum whether you're doing
good or not. I felt good about it. And I
came off and I looked at my teammate Ellen Hume,
and I was like, so, how are we doing? With
like this big, perky smile and expecting good news. And
she looks at me and she goes, well, you did great,
And I'm like, oh no. So I pull out my
phone and I look at the scores and We're down
(16:37):
in every other match at that point, and I'm thinking, okay, well,
maybe if we could flip two and uh two girls
that um, we're kind of um. Two girls that were
supposed to be key matches ended up losing their matches. Um,
which anything can happen in match play. That's that's the
(17:00):
beauty of it. But we were resorted. We had to
resort to two girls that were down in both of
their matches to be able to bring it back to
all square. And so Andrea Lignell one of our our sophomore, um,
one of our sophomores. She was able to bring it
back to all square and went into a playoff, and
we're like, okay, so we got one in the playoff.
(17:21):
We need her to win and smell a saunderby the
freshman that I had mentioned earlier that had no no
real you know, matchplay experience or you know experience at
a national championship, was two down with three to play,
and she ended up being able to square it up
and take it to extra holes as well. And we're
(17:43):
just all sitting there like, oh my gosh, we cannot
believe that this is happening. Because she made a like
fifteen foot birdie put on on sixteen and then a
fifteen foot birdie put on seventeen to take it to
all square, and then on eight seen, Um, they both
have the hole, and so they went to the next hole.
(18:04):
And when I tell you that, me and my teammates
were sprinting around the course, We were sprinting from whole
eighteen green to ten green, back to eighteen green to
ten green, just to be able to catch um, catch
our teammates in this playoff. And so uh, Andrea Lgnell
ends up making like a seven footer on eighteen on
(18:25):
her like twenty feet playoff hole to win the match,
and we're like, okay, so it's now two points Texas,
two points Ole miss, and so we're sitting there sweating
it out, trying to figure out if if Smilla has
what it takes to win this match. And twenty three
holes later, she makes like a clutch four footer to
win the match to send us into the semifinals, and
(18:49):
none of us could believe that that this even happened.
I mean, we were down in all four matches with
like five holes to go and she was able to
clinch this for us. So and then X segment I
will discuss the final two rounds of match play and
kind of how we went through that, and they weren't
nearly as dramatic as the Texas match, but they're still
pretty interesting. So you're listening to the Bertie Bunch and
(19:11):
I'm Kennedy Swan and this is the College Athletes Network.
(19:52):
Welcome back to the Bertie Bunch on the College Athletes Network.
This is Kennedy Swan and be sure to subscribe to
my podcast you don't miss a show. You can also
find me on Instagram at can You dig It, Twitter
at can You dig It, or on my website at
www dot Kennedy swan dot com. So in the last segment,
we talked about our our round of quarterfinals in match
(20:14):
play at the National Championship and how Smilla Saunderby was
able to pull out the winning point in twenty three
holes against Texas. Again, we had no uh not that
we didn't think we were gonna win, but it was
a long shot, UM, And so after that everyone kind
(20:35):
of had a funny feeling of like, Wow, if we
were able to make it through Texas in this fashion,
if we were able to dig deep and pull through
this match, we got to be able to win it
from here. You know. It's kind of like that that
underdog story of UM, it's kind of meant to be
at this point. And so after this match it was
(20:57):
a whirlwind because we were supposed most to tea off
an hour beforehand, just like the other two teams that
were in the quarterfine or in the semifinals did because
they didn't go to extra holes and we did. So
we were an hour behind on our tea time, so
we sprinted up to the pavilion. We did the pairings
real quick UM, which I found out I was playing Vivian,
(21:20):
who who UM is ranked in the top ten at
the time, was ranked in the top ten of the
world Amateur golf rankings, and lucky for me, I didn't
have enough time to pull up her stat or her
ranking to know much about her before I played her,
so I didn't really have time to be intimidated by
UM by her achievements. And so anyway, yeah, we were
(21:41):
playing Arizona in the UM in the the UM semifinals,
and we went out and I opened, UH going four
up in my first four holes against Vivian, and they
had big leaderboards kind of all around the course, UM,
but it was hard to tell because air Zona is
also red and blue, and so whenever I walk up
(22:03):
on a leaderboard to try to see where the score
was at, I could never tell, like which team was which,
And so I had to just tell myself, you know,
have faith, UM, keep doing what you're doing, and then
you know, hopefully the rest of the team will pull
it out. But all you can do is you can
only control what you do. And so UM, Vivian and
I went to seventeen holes, but at the end of
(22:26):
it um or Yeah, we went to sixteen holes and
I won three and two. Um. And then uh, three
of our other four girls won their matches as well.
So we won four and one against Arizona. And then
later that night, like late late at night because we
had teed off so late. Um. Poor Oklahoma State had
(22:47):
to stick around for like an extra hour just to
be able to stay be there for our pairings party. Um.
But we did them. The pairings party at like nine
o'clock at night. And uh, since Oklahoma State was at
the higher seed, they got to throw up the first player,
and so they threw out Maya Stark, and the coaches
(23:08):
put me against Maya, which I think Oklahoma State was
trying to do because the coaches typically like to send
me out first. That way, I don't I don't know why,
but I think that they said, um, you know, I
kind of keep the the energy, um upbeat for the team.
And so I as soon as Oklahoma State said Maya,
I knew I was going to be playing her. And
(23:30):
it was definitely very very intimidating from my side because
she was ranked number three in the world and uh,
she was also Swedish and we have two Swedish girls
on our team that know her pretty well, and they,
I mean they know, like everyone knows, Maya is just
insanely good. And so my coaches immediately afterwards, you know,
(23:51):
I was kind of freaking out, and my assistant coach
came up to me and was like, well, you have
one of two options. You can either suck it up
and go out there and try to beat her, or
you can go out there and just let her win.
And so that kind of that gave me a little
bit of encouragement of, well, I guess if I'm gonna lose,
I'm gonna lose swinging. And so no one really slept
(24:15):
that night. We were um so kind of nervous going
into the final match and just um didn't really know,
you know, what necessarily to expect. But then the big surprises.
We woke up the next morning and it just seemed
like another regular morning, you know. We we went to
Starbucks as a team and got our coffees and got
our breakfast, and um came back to the hotel and
(24:37):
all um hung out in the lobby by the pool,
eating our breakfast, drinking our coffee, just kind of talking
and no one really acknowledged that this is like we're
in the final match of the national Championship, and so
we uh, we all went back and um, we're getting
ready in our rooms and we get out in the
lobby and me and um, my roommate for the week, Ellen, Um,
(25:00):
we're sitting on the bench talking and a rules official
comes up and um, she's got a tattoo on her
ankle of like a big old W And I look
at Ellen and I'm like, I think that's like the
Washington w I was like, I wonder if um, you
know that she went to Washington. And she kind of
overheard us, and she was like, yeah, I got this
because me and my team won a national championship. And
(25:22):
I look at Ellen Hume and excuse my language, but
I go, oh shit. And I completely forgot that we
had made a bet with each other back in April
that if we won a national championship we were going
to get tattoos. And so we realized that morning. We're like,
this is this kind of made it real, like if
we win today, we have to get tattoos. And so
(25:46):
we're in the car and we're kind of talking about
the whole tattoo thing and We've got the windows down
and music blaring, and um, we get to the course
and we're all dancing in the parking lot. Um, I'm
a rebel just for kicks. And everyone kind of knew
that the vibe was just fun, like we're here, like
we might as well enjoy it, we might as well
(26:06):
have fun. Um, And you could kind of tell there
was a difference between Oklahoma States vibe and our vibe.
You know, we're all again like out there having fun, singing,
dancing on the range, and even the Golf Channel commentators
were just saying like, wow, well, miss looks really relaxed today.
And so we went out and Maya and I had
a really extremely competitive match. Um. I was one down
(26:31):
through three and then I got it back to two
up through ten, and then she canned a really long
birdie put on eleven to get it back down her
back to one down, and then she birdied um thirteen,
(26:52):
which is a really difficult part three, and we were
back to all square. And so I was kind of
thinking in my mind, I'm like, Okay, this is her push,
this is her momentum. I need to get the momentum
back in my favor because match play is all about
momentum and having the momentum on your side. And so
the next hole on fourteen, I birdied to get back
to one up, and so we both part fifteen and
(27:16):
sixteen and seventeen. We hit our t shots and Maya
goes for the green and I lay up with a
five iron and this is like a super wide fair way.
I thought, I hit a perfect shot. And I get
up there in my five irons in the rough and
I'm like, I cannot believe this um in this pin
had been in the exact same place for the past
(27:37):
eight days. Because the green, there's only really one place
to put the pen. And so I knew the shot
that I had to hit, and it was extremely hard.
I needed to hit a high soft sixty degree out
of really thick ruff that's gonna land on top of
the ridge and check. And at that point I thought
to myself, Well, all I'm gonna do is just try
to get a get a put at it. If I
(27:57):
get it on top of the ridge, great, If it
comes back down to the bottom, fine, I'll tuput you know,
we can go to eight teen. She can have this
hole and I'll win on eight team. And I hit
the shot, and I and as soon as I hit it,
I'm like, oh no, sit, sit sit. I flew that
way further than I wanted to. And it lands, takes
one hop and rolls up to about a foot and
(28:19):
everyone that was there supporting there was probably like thirty
or forty old miss fans just scream and yell and cheer,
and they knew that was gonna be like the the
thing that just killed Maya's momentum. And so she hits
her chip um from greenside up to like ten ft
(28:40):
and mrs the putt and so I won my match
against Maya, and then Dre comes in behind us and
she sinks a clutch seven ft or to win, and
we're all storming the greens crying, sobbing. Everyone's crying, Like
even the men's assistant coach or the men's head coach,
Chris Molloy that was there is sobbing. Our big donor
(29:02):
Tosh is sobbing. Everyone is just crying because we can't
believe that we just won a national championship. And so,
if you want to hear more about this, about the aftermath,
about the trophy ceremony, about all of that good stuff,
be sure to tune in next week. As always, thanks
for listening to The Bertie Bunch on the College Athlete Network.
(29:23):
Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode and see
you soon. Can you dig it? Can you dig it?
Care you digg The Birdie Bunch is a presentation of
(29:44):
I Her Radio and the College Athletes Network
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