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After finishing the game on the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate last March, South Carolina veteran Ana Pelaez boarded a plane to Malaga, Spain. It was the Gamecocks’ spring break, so coach Kalen Anderson gave Pelaez the go-ahead to go home for a while with his instructors and family.
While Pelaez was away, the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States in full force. With rumors that the ban on international travel to the United States of Europe became a reality, Anderson phoned Pelaez and said it was best to get on a plane as soon as possible or risk not hitting another college golf swing . At that point, the South Carolina spring season had been postponed, but the SEC championships and the NCAA postseason remained on the schedule.
“I told myself that if this is the last time I’m going to play with my team, then I’m going to go back and try,” said Pelaez, who quickly boarded a flight to Columbia, making the first connection in Miami.
“And as soon as I landed, they canceled everything.”
So Pelaez immediately went back to the plane, not just to school, but back home. She would spend almost 10 months there.
Although Pelaez initially planned to return to the US Women’s Amateur in August and then return to campus, the travel restrictions and uncertainty about Gamecocks’ fall schedule ended up voiding those plans. Pelaez didn’t want to get on a plane (again) just to come back (again).
“I think she had a little PTSD because of everything that happened,” said Anderson.
So Pelaez stayed in Spain, where she practiced every day and remained competitively sharp. She was among the top 3 during the summer and then represented Spain in the European Women’s Team Championship. In addition, after deciding not to return to campus in the fall, she started at some professional events, posting a pair of top-3s on them, before winning the Andalucia Cup last month.
“I had a great time at home,” said Pelaez. “But following my team [during the fall] in Golfstat, feeling jealous as if I wanted to be there with them, I was ready to return. “
Her team was excited to have her. Pelaez returned to Columbia for his final semester in late January. She was greeted by several new faces, including the transfer of All-American Pimnipa Panthong and three freshmen.
“I felt like a freshman again, I’m not going to lie,” said Pelaez. “There were so many new people. I was like, ‘Are you freshmen or am I the freshman?’ “
Anderson added: “Ana has such a great energy, so optimistic, so positive – we talked a lot when she left, but you just can’t get it all through FaceTime. It’s great to have it all back. “
South Carolina undoubtedly also has a much better player. When Pelaez first flew to Spain last March, she was out of the top 150 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. She is now No. 25 and received an invitation to play at Augusta Nacional Feminino Amador this April.
“She is a better and more mature version of herself,” said Anderson. “She is very, very well and confident in herself.”
Pelaez may have tied for third in qualifying for the Moon Golf Invitational, the team’s spring opening held last Tuesday in Melbourne, Florida, but it came alive in the tournament. She fired all three shots below par, including a bogey-free 5-under 67 in the second round. She ended up finishing the same (T-3) of the qualification, but this time against 17 of the best women’s teams in the country.
South Carolina won the event with 24 strokes, six shots ahead of LSU. Virginia, Florida State and Auburn complete the top five. Super student Pauline Roussin-Bouchard hit 13 strokes and took the individual title by four strokes – and she didn’t even tell Gamecocks on the last day. This South Carolina team is deep and talented.
And they are even better with Pelaez back in the fold.
A new type of shotgun
Florida coach JC Deacon receives top marks in creativity.
With the help of tournament committee members Scott Limbaugh of Vanderbilt and Scott Schroeder of North Florida, Deacon used a unique type of improvised match format for last weekend’s Gator Invitational.
With bad weather forecast for the end of the weekend, the 21-team field had to try to squeeze 54 holes in two days. And with the Gators home course, Mark Bostick Golf Course in Gainesville, with limited scope, there was no way a typical shotgun start, where all players start at the same time in different holes (and heat up simultaneously), would work.
So Deacon and his fellow coaches decided on a hybrid, combining elements from a shotgun start with traditional tee times. Beginning with the first round on Friday, the 120 players left in quarters of six different holes starting at 8 am. In each of the six holes, there were five sets of tee times, going until 8:40 am. Players starting at No. 1, 4 and 7 warm up at the front of the field, while Nos. 10, 13 and 16 hit the balls at the back of the field, and no player had more than a minute’s walk to their starting tee.
The same was done for the second afternoon shift on Friday and the final shift on Saturday. Despite the three-hour rain delay on Saturday, the tournament concluded on Saturday night, before the weather actually got worse on Sunday.
“You couldn’t do that kind of game on many golf courses, but our course was built for that,” said Deacon. “It ended up being perfect, a no-brainer. I probably owe these boys [Limbaugh and Schroeder] some beers because I spent a little bit. “
The Gators eroded their competition on the field, too, winning their home event for the second year in a row. Florida finished with 29 strokes, five strokes ahead of Auburn and Georgia, and has now won two consecutive races to open the spring. Second year Yuxin Lin, who moved from the USC to Florida during the winter break, led the Gators with a T-6 finish.
“It looks like we’re on the right track,” said Deacon, who reflected on the fall when his team finished 10º or worse at two of its three exclusive SEC events. “I remember sitting in the van after finishing 10º at Jerry Pate and before we left the parking lot at Old Overton, we talked. (…) I basically said to the boys: ‘We all have to work. We didn’t earn the right to take a few months off here and put our feet on the ground. And everyone did that.
“It is [start] was won in November and December. “
College Golf Talk
Steve Burkowski and Brentley Romine catch up with Florida coach JC Deacon after the Gators win at Gator Invitational. In addition, the guys discuss how deep the women’s SEC is and predict which players can fill the US Walker Cup team.
Without Fitzy and Power, no problem for Wake
With arguably his two best players out after a tiring weekend in the Jones Cup, Wake Forest was far from in full swing when he headed to Kiawah last Sunday to prepare for his third spring event.
The good news for the Demon Deacons is that their full strength can withstand most teams, and they proved that on Tuesday at Oak Point Golf Club by hitting 37 from the bottom and winning the Kiawah Invitational by nine strokes over Clemson.
“What a great team victory for our guys,” said Wake Forest coach Jerry Haas. “I told someone last week that we are an explosive group with a long way to go, but when we start, we will be making a lot of birdies. This is exactly what we did this week. … They want to be the best team in the country and I believe it will happen. “
Even with likely Walker Cuppers Alex Fitzpatrick and Mark Power out of the lineup, Wake set a program record with his first round, 21-under 267. Freshman Michael Brennan, now the new Phil Mickelson Award favorite, hit 16 below to win his first college title by five shots at teammate Eric Bae and Archie Davies of East Tennessee State.
The Demon Deacons opened the spring with submissions in T-1 (defeat in the playoffs), second and first place.
PGA Tour University update
There was no movement in the top 10 this week, although that is expected to change next week, as the college golf calendar really grows. Andrew Kozan of Auburn was the big driver this week, co-medaling at the Gator Invitational to improve 58 places to No. 49. Also, keep an eye on Minnesota’s Angus Flanagan (35) and San Francisco’s Tim Widing (20) , which are both starting at Genesis Invitational this week.
- 1. John Pak, state of Florida
- 2. Chun An Yu, State of Arizona
- 3. Austin Eckroat, Oklahoma
- 4. Davis Thompson, Georgia
- 5. Sandy Scott, Texas Tech
- 6. Quade Cummins, Oklahoma
- 7. Garett Reband, Oklahoma
- 8. McClure Meissner, SMU
- 9. Trevor Werbylo, Arizona
- 10. Hunter Eichhorn, Marquette
- 11. Kyle Hogan, Texas Tech
- 12. Jovan Rebula, Auburn
- 13. Devon Bling, UCLA
- 14. Adrien Pendaries, duke
- 15. Cooper Dossey, Baylor
For the complete classification, click here.