Hi Illini Fans!
We are back in Champaign from Columbus, Ohio after closing out our regular season. We ended the Lady Buckeye Invitational hosted by Ohio State in fifth place, which was our sixth-straight top-five finish. While our finish was all right amongst a pretty tough field, we also realize that we still have much more to give.
After coming back from a busy spring break trip, we were able to spend some time at home working on our game and swing. The team also played a qualifier during the two-week gap leading up to the Lady Buckeye. We gathered what we learn during spring break and focused on what we needed to prepare for the last stretch of the season. It was a great period of time for us to recover and put in some quality work on our golf games to get ourselves ready for the last stretch of the season.
The Lady Buckeye is always a great tournament to prep ourselves for the Big Ten Championship as we played the same six player per team format. The tournament traditionally has a strong field, including this year when there were 5 top-35 teams in the country. Amongst the 12 teams in the field, 8 of the teams are also in the Big Ten Conference.
The first 36 holes we put ourselves in a really good position with a score of 297 and 297. We were in third place and the final paring for the last round. The second day presented tougher conditions and the score for the whole field showed it as well. The wind was very strong and it was much harder to play aggressive and the Illini carded a 316 to end the tournament, which was not our best play. Dana played very well in the tough conditions, finishing with a 76 and moving up 11 places on the leaderboard. Three of us secured a top 25 finish individually including Tristyn, Grace and myself. The last round was not the best finish for us, however we learned a lot from this tournament, identified where we can each improve and will be working on it over the next few days.
We are back on campus for a couple days where we will be fine tuning the little details and maximizing our time to prepare ourselves for the Big Ten Championship this weekend. This turnaround is quick and in the shape of a U-turn as we head back to Ohio on Wednesday. We have our eyes set forward down the road to Maineville, Ohio, and TPC River's Bend, and eager to put back into play all the lessons from this spring season.
We would love to see our supporters come to watch the Championship this Friday-Sunday!
Go Illini!
Jan Prapassarangkul
