Baylor Bear Insider
During a winning streak in baseball, you don't dare change socks, much less make any significant adjustments to the lineup.
It's a different sport, but Jay Goble's not about to change a thing after his top-ranked Baylor women's golf team just won its fifth tournament in a row. Trailing fourth-ranked LSU by one shot with four holes to play in Tuesday's final round, the Bears strung together a combined nine birdies on the closing holes to win the ICON Invitational at Golf Club of Houston by five shots.
"I didn't look at (the leader board) all day," said Goble, whose team was tied with LSU after 36 holes. "When I went and shook the LSU coach's hand, I didn't even know that we had won. I just said, 'I don't know exactly how we finished up, but enjoyed the day.' Come to find out, we flipped it on them and ended up winning by five."
Other than rallying for a one-shot victory over Texas Tech in the Cowgirl Classic in the fall, Baylor had completely dominated the fields, winning the other three tournaments by a combined 56 strokes. This one was different right out of the chute.
Seeing his team struggle, Goble happened to glance down at his phone in Monday's opening round and saw that Baylor was 6-over-par and sitting in last place in the 13-team tournament.
Freshman Britta Snyder, who tied a school record with a 7-under-par 65 in the second round and finished tied for third at 10-under 206, hit into water twice on her first three holes and started with a double-bogey 6.
"I realize we had snow and didn't have a whole lot of practice time," Goble said. "But, that was my first impression. I don't look at the leader board much, as you know. I looked down, and I was like, 'Oh boy, why did we come here?'''
Tied for fourth after a 2-under 286 in Monday's first round, the Bears rallied to shoot 10-under 278 in the afternoon round and came back with a 12-under 276 on Tuesday, with all five players shooting 2-under or better. Baylor's winning score for the 54-hole tournament was 24-under-par 840, followed by LSU (845), No. 9 Oklahoma State (854) and No. 19 TCU (861).
"LSU's No. 1 player (Ingrid Lindblad) is a top-five player in the world. To go beat them is pretty awesome," Goble said. "Oklahoma State had their best team this week. They had Isabella Fierro back in the lineup. Maja Stark is a top-five player in the world in their lineup. So, we played against great players this week. I think the only one missing from our conference would probably be Kaitlyn Papp from Texas. She didn't play. But besides that, everybody was in the lineup playing."
Which made what Snyder and fellow freshman Rosie Belsham did even more impressive. Snyder led the field with 18 birdies and recorded her second top-five finish of the season, while Belsham had five of her 14 birdies in a closing round of 3-under 69 and tied for fifth at 8-under-par 208.
"They've had top-5 and top-10 finishes, but I would say this was a breakout for those two," Goble said of Snyder and Belsham. "As many good players as were there this week, for them to go and finish third and fifth, that's pretty amazing. These are two freshmen working their way into the lineup, and they don't know anything but winning right now, which is really cool."
Snyder followed up her record-tying round with birdies on her last three holes to shoot 4-under 68 on Tuesday, while Belsham had three-straight under-par rounds and finished with back-to-back 69s.
"As she normally does, (Snyder) goes out and makes a ton of birdies, pitched in for an eagle on No. 10 yesterday. So, it was a pretty special week for her," Goble said. "Rosie, as great as she played, I think she left a few on the greens, for sure. She could have had an even lower score, which is just crazy."
Junior Gurleen Kaur shot 2-under 70 on Tuesday and moved up to a tie for 16th at 1-under 215, one shot ahead of sixth-year senior Elodie Chapelet (69-216) and two up on freshman Hannah Karg (70-217). Of the three players who went as individuals, freshman Nina Lang had the best finish, shooting 3-over 219 to tie for 32nd in the 77-player field.
"Hannah finishes fifth on our team this week, but still finished in the top 25 or close to it," Goble said. "She won two weeks ago (at Trinity Forest) and won a professional event a month ago. So, I don't think I can take anybody out of the lineup. The scoring averages for our team are pretty crazy."
In its toughest test to date, Baylor will play in the South Carolina Intercollegiate that begins Monday in Columbia, S.C., with a field that includes defending national champion Wake Forest, seven-time champion Duke and "I think it's everybody in the SEC, which is always stacked," Goble said.
"I think we're going to be challenged by the weather, too, so that will be another test to show us what we're made of," Goble said. "Championship golf is, how do you respond to adversity? It was totally out of our control that it snowed last week and we couldn't practice for seven days. It took us a minute to get going on Monday, but once we got past those first couple holes – it's kind of like riding a bicycle – they knew we were back in competitive mode and turned it up another notch."
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February 25, 2021 at 06:12AM
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