June 28, 2012

Trip Photo Gallery

As the California Golden Bear women's golf team's trip to Ireland and Scotland draws to a close, head coach Nancy McDaniel shares her thoughts on the trip.

This has been an extraordinary trip that we feel very fortunate to have experienced. As a long time coach of the program this is a trip that was only a far-off dream 15 years ago.

You might be wondering what the coaches did after the week of playing with the team in Ireland....well we followed them across to Scotland! The McDaniel family flew in Friday and that included our volunteer assistant coach Jay McDaniel. After a few more rounds in Dublin, and I do mean golf rounds we flew to Scotland and headed up to Carnoustie to watch the British Ladies Am. The coaches were able to support the team and scout a few upcoming worldwide recruits. After the first 3 days of practice round and qualifying we knew the team was thinking we were crazy for preparing them for cold weather, wind and rain as the weather could not have been better in California! Then Wednesday came and they finally were able to experience a true Scottish round on a links style course on Wednesday. Our Cal team members played hard in typical Bear fashion, right to the finish! The years of experience these Europeans have over them with this style of golf proved too much and we advanced just Dani Holmqvist in to the match play. Only 1 American player qualified for match play! What does that tell you? Sophomore, Jo Ee Kok was very close as she lost in a play-off for one of the last match play positions. It was a lot of fun to watch our Cal players change their shots around the green, master the punch shot and play their drivers teed low and back in their stance...finally they were in the real life situation to have to play these shots in order to survive. The camaraderie shared with one another as well as the people we met along the way was priceless. Most of the team will have a chance to travel around Europe and take in the culture for a week or so before heading back to the states and their busy amateur golf schedules.

A special thanks to John and Ginger Lamberson for taking an interest in international travel and making that dream a reality. The memories made and lessons learned will last a lifetime!

Daniela Holmqvist has advanced to the round of 32 in match play Thursday afternoon! Watch the results on LGU.org.

Cheers!

-Coach McDaniel