Golf team preps for Duck Invitational

As a battle in Oregon looms on the horizon, the University of Montana golf team is beginning to find their swagger at just the right time. 

With just a little over a month until the Big Sky Conference Championship, the UM golfers are heading to Junction City, Ore. for the Duck Invitational on March 24 and 25. 

Since their ninth place finish in Arizona in early March, the team has been practicing outside, rain or shine.

“We’ve been outside every day, which is nice, but you’ve got to deal with the cold, rain, snow and sleet,” said head coach Joanne Steele. 

Although these conditions can make a realistic golf practice nearly impossible, Steele said her team has responded well and worked through the challenge. 

“We’ve been improving a lot in just the last couple of weeks,” Steele said.

She said her squad has the chance to peak at just the right time and is showing signs of doing so in practice. If the Griz can do this, Steele thinks they have a chance to make a run at the conference title.

Montana was picked to finish seventh in preseason polls.

The tournament in Oregon features heavyweight programs from across the West and Midwest including the University of California Berkley, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Colorado and Minnesota. Portland State is the only other school from the Big Sky that will be competing.

The tournament will feature the most talent in one place that the team faces all year, but things are looking up for Montana. 

“This is awesome right now, and I’m just really pumped,” said senior Anna Maria Jaramillo.

Jaramillo recalls several of her teammates coming up to her talking about how something clicked with their games.  Something was clicking with her game as well. All the aspects - short-, medium- and long-range games - were coming together. 

“It’s great to see the smiles on their faces and know that they’re gaining confidence,” Jaramillo said. 

All the practice, no matter what the conditions, has helped meld the pieces of their games together into a cohesive skill set that is constantly improving, she said. 

For a team that didn’t have a single home tournament in the fall and doesn’t have one in the spring, the Grizzlies have been making the best of things. Although they don’t get the excitement of the friendly home fans, the players on this particular team don’t seem to be bothered by this or anything else. 

“This is a really big tournament, and I’m so excited right now,” freshman Carrisa Simmons said. “I want to go out there and compete against some really great schools and players and prove that we’re not just some small school, but deserve to be there.”

She said she agrees with Jaramillo about the players finding their games at the right time. They’ve been playing every day, not just working on putting or drives, but playing actual rounds of golf every day. So the players are making significant strides, she said. 

Aside from this, she said that all eight players on the team are playing at a high level and are dedicated about improving. 

Although it will take the whole team to perform at a high level if the Griz intend to make some noise in this tournament and the rest of the season, sophomore Jacqueline Olson has been a constant leader. At Montana’s last tournament in Arizona, she finished things up with a second-round 76 to take seventh place overall. 

The rest of the UM golfers are coming into form before their coach’s eyes, and their dedication to the game is a major factor. 

“All the players have gone out and played practice rounds on days when most people would call them crazy,” Steele said. 

Steele said that Eastern Washington provides the biggest challenge for her team, but that doesn’t mean Montana can’t make a run at a top-three finish or even the conference title. 

While most of the student body will be settling into spring break vacation next week, these golfers will be playing 36 holes on Monday, and 18 on Tuesday against some of the best competition in the nation. 

“This conference is up in the air right now, and the players have a big challenge in front of them,” Steele said. “We want to improve on what we did in Arizona and just make progress one day at a time.”