In a fight against time and the elements, the No. 19 Irish were able to clinch the fifth spot at The Landfall Tradition after 18 holes of golf, after which the tournament was cancelled due to the heavy rainfall of Hurricane Sandy.
Irish coach Susan Holt said she was pleased with how the Irish performed on the first day despite the less-than-optimal conditions. Freshman Lindsey Weaver finished with a two-under par 70, which earned her a tie for third place. Sophomore Kelli Oride shot an even-par 72 and was in a four-way tie for 11th place. The Irish finished ahead of No. 4 Arizona, No. 11 North Carolina State and No. 12 Michigan State who finished 12th, 7th and 6th respectively.
"All in all, I'm pretty happy finishing fifth, considering the circumstances," Holt said. "Our mindset going in was it could conceivably be an 18-hole tournament because of the weather coming from Hurricane Sandy.
"We had two players under par and we beat a few teams who were ranked ahead of us. We put ourselves in a better position for the spring season."
On Saturday, Notre Dame was in third place after 27 holes, but the rest of the day and Sunday were rained out.
"It's hard to speculate how we would have finished," Holt said. "Most of our kids got nine holes in on Saturday, but other teams still had a lot more to go. There were just downpours of rain, greens accumulated water and the girls couldn't putt and there was too much water on the course to play."
With the fall tournament schedule now over, The Irish will now begin their offseason training, in order to prepare for the spring.
"We go into our offseason schedule," Holt said. "It's eight hours of training a week, no more than two playing golf. We will mainly do strength training and conditioning. Our time for golf is significantly cut back, so we will focus on academics. Most of the players are from warm-weather climates - Hawaii, California, Arizona - so I'm glad they will be getting some rounds in over winter break."
As the Irish look to the spring season, Holt said they want to focus on maintaining their scores.
"There were a handful of times this semester where we put ourselves in a pretty good position to be under par as a team for a round, but we weren't able to obtain it. We want to get there as a team and keep it there. We need to prepare for the championship tournaments in May."
The Irish will pick up competition Feb. 15, when they head to Tallahassee, Fla., for the three-day Mash Up tournament.
Contact Isaac Lorton at ilorton@nd.edu
