Oehrlein Talks About the Upcoming Badger Invitational
September 05, 2006 | Women's Golf
Badger Coach Todd Oehrlein talked with the media at the regular Monday news conference prior to hosting the Badger Women's Golf Invitational Sept. 10-11 at University Ridge Golf Course.
OEHRLEIN: "First of all we're very excited to be getting started. And we're really looking forward to hosting the Badger Invitational this upcoming weekend. It's another strong field. And we feel fortunate, really very fortunate, to be able to play our first event of the season at home.
In our sport, we actually, we can't start practice until the first day of class, and so we'll have our first practice tomorrow. And we'll spend most of this week qualifying and trying to get prepared for the upcoming event. As you can imagine, they've had very competitive summers and have played a tremendous amount of golf. And I'm very confident in what they've done over the summer.
I'm very comfortable with the schedules that they played. They played extremely high-level competition, very competitive schedules.They played well. A number of the players, both returning players and some of the incoming freshmen, had a lot of success as well. I'm confident that they're prepared to get things started. It 'll be a quick turnaround for us. There's no doubt about that.
We actually return our top two scorers from last year, Katie Elliott and Jeana Dahl. Katie is a junior, and Jeana will be a sophomore. Both of them have played in every event since they've came to the university. We have two other players that are returning with significant experience, Jill Ries and Isabel Alvarez.
The biggest thing, if I can just talk about those four really very briefly, is that I 'm very comfortable and very confident with the leadership and the direction that these four will take our program. They lead by example. They're talented players. They're passionate about what they're doing, and they're very committed to this program. So I'm very comfortable and very excited about having these four set an example and lead this team this year.
The remainder of the lineup, as you can imagine, is very young. Positions are wide open. There will be a tremendous amount of competition and roles and positions really have yet to be determined. That translates into opportunity for young players. And I know I feel very confident that a number of these players will, are talented enough and will definitely start to separate themselves. But there will be plenty of chances for players to take advantage and separate themselves from other players. So with that, I'll open up for some questions.
QUESTION #1: Which freshman do you see making an immediate impact'
OEHRLEIN: It wouldn't surprise me to see all of the incoming freshmen, the true freshmen. If you look at our roster, it mentions six freshmen. Three of those are red-shirted freshmen that were around last year within the program. They certainly have a leg up just from an experience standpoint, and I could see them early on being a little more comfortable in the situation and maybe have a little more success early on.
The incoming freshmen though are very talented. Kelsey Verbeten, Beth Weinstein, and Heidi Hinners, all three have had a lot of success, are very comfortable in competitive situations, and have played at a high level and played national-type, national-level competition. And so it would not surprise me at all to actually see all three of them in the lineup at different times throughout the year.
QUESTION #2: Losing Obermueller and McMillian, how does it affect your squad'
OEHRLEIN: Yeah, Lindsay and Jackie, it'll be a loss. They were great leaders for us, led by example, were very committed to what we 're doing, and they're going to be missed. That happens though. I mean, players move on, and, you know, coaches will always tell you that you're going to miss those players, but it provides opportunity for new players to step in and show what they can do and show what they're capable of. And so that has to be our focus. Our focus has to be on what's here and what we have and how these players are going to move forward and who's going to step in and fill those roles.
QUESTION #3: Regarding the the (local) area ladies, Heidi Hinners, what are her strengths as a golfer, and Kate Wierwill too from Verona, just what do they do best on the golf course and where you'd like to help them improve.
OEHRLEIN: We'll start with Kate, returning player, was in the program last year as a red-shirted freshman. Some of Kate's biggest issues early on were just distance and just trying to get used to the college level and the length of the golf courses that we play. She's worked very hard in her strength and conditioning program. She's gotten stronger.
There's a couple things mechanically that she cleaned up and improved upon and built on her golf swing, and so she has picked up some yardage. Now it's just maturity and it's just development and making the game, her game a little more well rounded and complete. When I've seen her this summer, it's been vastly improved. And I know just in our conversations that we've had as of late, she feels confident coming into the fall and is excited to be getting started.
Heidi, as much as anything, just knows how to play and knows how to compete. And any of you that have ever played the game, you know, those that play it understand that some players are just able to get the ball in the hole and it's a little bit of an intangible, and some players are very comfortable in, on the golf course. And Heidi, I think her experience plays a role in that.
She's been fortunate enough to have some great education, some great teaching along the way, and so that plays a role. Heidi is going to have a little bit of an adjustment from a yardage standpoint as well. That's going to be a challenge. The best way to really overcome that, is with time to a certain extent, with maturity and with added strength, but your short game needs to be solid and needs to be firm.
So that's going to be something that Heidi and, and as a team I think we 're really going to have to focus on, but Heidi, that's going to be an area where she's going to have to be sharp and she's not going to let a lot of shots get away from her inside 100 yards.
QUESTION #4: I know the week is short, but are you having an 18- or 36-hole qualifying, and how many of our players will be appearing in the tournament'
OEHRLEIN: We actually will be able to get in 36 holes. It'll be short, but we're able to get in 36 holes. And as of right now, we're planning on playing 10 players. We'll have our top five players playing as a team, and then we'll have five individuals playing. There 's a possibility, depending on red-shirt situations, things along those lines, that it could be nine, but we'll have nine for sure. I really actually expect 10 though.
