UW Hopes April Showers Will Bring May Advantages
May 4, 2011
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AUBURN, Wash. - Anya Alvarez walked across the front nine of the Huskies' home course, and it was as if she was walking on soaked towels. The spongy grass squished beneath the honorable mention All-Pac-10 golfer's wet spikes -- yet she didn't appear to even notice.
Fellow UW senior Karinn Dickinson, who spent 10 years until she was 17 growing up in far-from-tropical Norway, teed off wearing a black, baklava-looking wrap over her ears. It looked as much a part of her everyday gear as a driver, a ball and a tee.
It's an old story, given Huskies have competed in the inherent weather of the Pacific Northwest since about the time meteorology was invented. But this week, that same-ol' of sloshy fairways, molasses-like greens and threat of rain becomes Washington's potential ace in the hole. The Huskies are hosting the west regional of the NCAA women's golf championship at their suburban home course, Washington National.
UW, the 13th-seed, is one of 24 teams here. So is top-ranked USC, third-seeded, fellow conference rival Arizona plus other sunny schools such as No. 4-seed Georgia, sixth-seeded Pepperdine, 12-seed South Carolina, 16th-seeded San Diego State, 18-seed New Mexico and 21st-seeded New Mexico State.
"We definitely have an advantage because we are so used to playing in these conditions," Alvarez, from the Tulsa suburb of Jenks, Okla., said from just off the first tee, well before Wednesday's NCAA practice round. "We've kind of gotten used to playing in the slush, wading through water."
Washington, seeking its sixth trip to the NCAA finals as a team in 11 years, will tee off Thursday at 12:30 p.m. local time. The top eight teams from this regional and from the east and central regions, plus the top two individuals at each site not already on NCAA-qualifying teams, advance to the national championships May 18-21 at Texas A&M. That gives the Aggies extra motivation as the ninth seed here this week.
But it doesn't give A&M any more of an edge on this open, 6,266-yard course that has slow greens guarded by deep bunkers. Washington National, on which the Huskies routinely practice about 45 minutes south of the UW campus, has been soaked by rainfall twice the Puget Sound's normal amount for April.
Huskies veteran coach Mary Lou Mulflur praised the grounds crew for what she said was around-the-clock work for the last several weeks while the Seattle area had its fourth-wettest April ever, with almost five inches.
How different are those conditions are to what, say, Arizona plays in? What Seattle has received in the last month is about half the average rainfall in Tucson for an entire year.
The forecast for the west regional is typical Seattle for spring. After a mirage of 60s and sun during Wednesday's practice round, more clouds are expected for Thursday's opening round. The forecast calls for a 60-percent chance of showers Friday and 40 percent during Saturday's final round.
Mulflur noted that in 2002 and again in '06 Washington National hosted the NCAA championships and had zero weather delays.
Alvarez, who graduated in March in just 3 2/3 years, is ranked 57th in the nation. She says UW's weather advantage only works over inferior players. She thinks no matter what the conditions are they won't bother the nation's best college golfers who are coming to Washington National. That includes USC's national No. 3 Sophia Popov, fourth-ranked Lizette Salas and sixth-ranked Lisa McCloskey, plus No. 5 Carlota Ciganda of Arizona State and eighth-ranked Erica Popson of fifth-seeded Tennessee.
"The really good competitors put that out of their minds. Anybody who is a great competitor won't let that bother them," said Alvarez, who is scheduled to compete in the Colorado Open June 1-4.
"There will be players who complain, `Oh, you can't play in this.' Then they've already defeated themselves."
The Huskies, in an NCAA regional for the 18th time in Mulflur's 28 seasons leading them, have other advantages besides weather that could help their quest to turn an eighth-place finish at last month's Pac-10 championships into another trip to the NCAA championships.
The Huskies' lineup of Alvarez, Dickinson, junior Sadena Parks - UW's first African-American women's golfer who is about 2.5 shots behind Alvarez for the team lead in scoring average this season - plus freshmen Kelli Bowers and A Ram Choi are long hitters. That should come in handy this week, when 6,200 yards will play even longer since balls are liable to stick in fairways like lawn darts and barely roll on greens. Visiting players are used to far more generous distances from their shots.
"We want to use our length to our advantage," Mulflur said.
She estimated that playing when Washington National is damp, with its huge green sizes, may be a three-to-four club difference in distance over playing at, say, the Pac-10 championship course from three weeks ago at Arizona State.
Mulflur, who is on the national tournament committee that selected the field for these NCAAs, says the Huskies' goal is to finish in the top three at this region. That would get UW back to the NCAA championships for the first time since 2006.
"Yeah, we finished eighth in our conference," the Huskies' coach said, "but top to bottom, it's a pretty tough league."
Indeed, seven of the top 34 in Golfstat.com's national rankings this week are from the Pac-10. USC is the top-ranked team in the country. Arizona is seventh. Thirty-third ranked Oregon is the 11 seed at Washington National this week, two spots ahead of UW.
But now the Huskies are on their own, unique turf.
"By ranking, we made it where we should be," Mulflur said of her 38th-ranked team. "We feel like we can get there (to the NCAA finals).
"And," she added, "we have the home-course advantage."
