Sept. 18, 2008

Go behind the scenes of Illinois women's golf with "Chip Shots", the online golf journal. In the second edition of the new season, freshman Hailey Koschmann discusses the weather and friendly people of Nebraska as well as how the five freshmen fared at their first collegiate tournament.

This week was very exciting for the Illinois golf team. It was our first tournament of the year. The tournament took place in Lincoln, Nebraska. None of us had been there before so we didn't really know what to expect. The weather for our practice round on Saturday was a little bit cold and very windy, but we were lucky to have had awesome weather for the two days that the tournament took place. People from Nebraska said that the fairly warm weather we had was uncharacteristic for that time of year.

Another thing that made the week so eventful was that our team took five freshmen to the tournament. Everyone was pretty nervous about playing their first college tournament, but also really excited. When we first got to Nebraska, we met our host families. It was cool to meet a few people from Nebraska and stay with them for a couple of days. It felt like a luxury to have our own big bed, room, and bathroom to ourselves for the weekend as opposed to our usual living in tight quarters in the dorms. Another plus for the trip was the food! We got to eat at some nice restaurants with great food, no dorm food this weekend.

The tournament itself went well. Everyone on the team contributed and posted good scores. For our first tournament of the year, and being that five new faces played at this particular event, we were pleased with the results. We now have just a little bit more experience and will know what to expect next time. Hopefully with this new experience and some hard practice in the next few weeks, we will be able to do even better at the next event.

Go Illini!

~Hailey