Notre Dame traveled to Florida State’s Seminole Golf Club for a 12-team tournament, and their total score of 916 strokes — 52 over par — left them in last, far behind the top-finishing Seminoles, who shot 27 under par.
The tournament grouped different teams together to compete in pairs, and the Irish battled in tandem with Oklahoma against five other two-school teams. The strong performance of Oklahoma’s team lifted the pairing into fourth, but this was of little importance to Irish head coach Susan Holt.
“We were very disappointed — this was the first time we’ve had a team finish last since I’ve been here,” Holt said. “We’ve got to get more consistent. [Sophomore] Emma Albrecht played great and put together three solid rounds, but didn’t get much support from the rest of her team.”
Albrecht finished in a tie for 22nd out of the 66 golfers competing, posting a 3-over-par 219 over three rounds. Her even-par 72 in the second round was the lowest round posted by any Irish golfers.
Holt identified inconsistency as the main issue with the other Notre Dame golfers, though noted that her team is uniquely challenged by having to practice inside, unlike the hot-weather schools they were competing against.
“It’s a lack of consistency,” Holt said. “Granted that it is a challenge to not be able to practice outside every day, it’s our reality. We’ve got to be able to make it up in other areas of the game, particularly chipping and putting, and we weren’t able to.”
The Irish had several players have great individual days. Sophomore Isabella DiLislio’s final round 73 and senior Jordan Ferreira’s second-round 74 show that the team has a lot of talent and room to improve once it begins to play with consistency.
“For all of us, consistency needs to be there,” Holt said. “We’re a top program that plays in top-level tournaments. When you’re in this situation, you’ve got to be ready to compete every single time. We need to get ourselves ready. There’s some positives to be taken away from this, but it’s a reality check. We need to get better.”
The Irish now look ahead to the Westbrook Spring Invitational in Peoria, Arizona, hosted by Wisconsin.
“We’re excited for that, getting back to a course that we’re familiar with,” Holt said. “It’s a fun golf course and a scorable golf course, and one where we can put some numbers on the board. We’re excited to have an opportunity to get back to where we usually are.”
