SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University's women's golf team opens the spring season Sunday at the second annual Folino Invitational hosted by Cal State Fullerton at the Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms in Industry Hills, Calif.
The 54-hole event will tee off at 8 a.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, with the final round a shotgun start. The women will play their tournament on the "Babe" Zaharias course on the blue and white tees which plays to par 72 and 6,088 yards to 6,552 yards.
In addition to the Bulldogs, the 12-team women's field includes host Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly SLO, Cal State Bakersfield, Cal State Northridge, Eastern Washington University, Long Beach State University, the University of Montana, Sacramento State University, Seattle University, University of South Alabama and UC Riverside.
Gonzaga head coach Brad Rickel believes his team is ready for a solid spring season after a productive off-season.
"I hoped our team would go home and work hard over Christmas break. Most of them are from warm-weather places and I think they did that. They came back to school ready to go. It's nice to know a team is self-motivated that way," Rickel said. "Since we've been here we've used everything we could to try and be ready. We've used our indoor facility, we've been using our outdoor practice facility and we've gone to the Tri-Cities three weekends to play golf. Whether we are ready or not, we've certainly done every single thing we could to be ready at this point."
Consistency, especially from the third, fourth and fifth players, is high on Rickel's list of necessary improvements from the fall season.
"I think we need total team efforts. In the fall it seemed every tournament two or three would play well each round and we could never get that third or fourth score to be as good as it needed to be," Rickel noted. "For whatever reason we never could have a full team effort every round. If we can figure that out and have everybody clicking at the same time we're better than we've ever been and that's what we're hoping for."
A young line-up will tee off Sunday with freshman Han Wu at No. 1, sophomore Tai Jade 'TJ' Kliebphipat at No. 2, freshman Alice Kim at No. 3, and juniors Victoria Fallgren and Genavive Dodge at four and five, respectively.
Dodger returns after missing the fall season after undergoing shoulder surgery, but Rickel said she has worked her way back into the line-up.
"The shoulder is better. They (doctors) released her to start practicing and playing in late December. As always, she is never out worked. She's worked incredibly hard and with determination and everything, she's got herself in the lineup for the first tournament," Rickel said.
With neither of his two seniors making the cut for this trip, Rickel said there is going to be plenty of competition for spots this spring.
"Our two seniors (Stephanie Corey and Jessica Howe) aren't on this trip. They've played a huge amount of golf for us and they are going to be looking to get back in the line-up," Rickel said. "I think we'll have some great competition trying to bring out the best in all of us this spring."
The Bulldogs, second in the West Coast Conference Championship last spring, are a better team this year, according to Rickel.
"I think in every way we're a better team, one year better, one year older and the freshmen are two of our best players," he analyzed. "The conference is obviously stronger. The University of San Francisco is having a much better year than they had last year, and with BYU coming in, BYU has always been a national type program in women's golf. Anywhere you finish in the top three in our conference would be a good accomplishment," he said. "Obviously, we're looking to play the best we can. I believe if we show up at conference, play the best we can then we'll be in the final group on the final day and who knows what can happen."
BYU will be playing in its first WCC Championship this spring after joining the conference last July 1.
The Bulldogs will play another tough schedule this spring and Rickel has tried to schedule his team into tougher tournaments.
"We definitely stepped up our schedule the last couple of years. We've never been to Fullerton before so we don't know as much about the field. Hopefully, it will be a field where you can compete early in the season," he said. "Then we go to San Jose State which is always a big-time tournament with big-time teams, then off to Hawai'i where there are always some big teams in Hawaii, then to Tucson where we've played the last few years and done well, but it's usually Midwest teams we don't see very often."
