After its first round of play at the Indiana Invitational today, the Penn State women's golf team closed with a disappointing last place finish and a score of 327. The team shot 39-over.
The Nittany Lions teed off at noon due to a frost delay and were only able to play 18 holes, instead of the normal 36.
The shortened competition was not favorable to the Penn State golfers, who would have liked a second round to improve their performances.
"One less round can be good or bad depending on how you look at it," junior Christin Pacacha said. "We would have liked a second round today, but that's something we don't have control over. You can only play with the hand you're dealt."
Pacacha said the tournament did not start out as rough for her as it did for the rest of the team.
"Truthfully, for me, I hit the ball well, and I'm not disappointed," she said. "I was in position to make birdies, but couldn't get the putts to drop."
Pacacha finished on top for Penn State, tied with 5 other people at No. 40. Senior Maggie Lester followed her, tied at No. 54, and senior Evelyn Paik finished tied at No. 70. Freshman Katherine Murphy and junior Megan Padua rounded out the scores, coming in at No. 77 and No. 85, respectively.
As the competition continues today, Pacacha said she will not do much differently than she did yesterday.
"I'm really gonna stick to my game plan I had going in," she said.
"I felt really good about a lot of things today."
Pacacha said she will pay more attention to the holes that got away from her yesterday and really focus on turning them around so that the putts will drop tomorrow.
"It's hard, golf is an individual sport for the most part," she said. "You can only control what you control yourself and it's hard when you have to depend on three other people to have a good day the same day you do."
She added that golf is not like a typical team sport where everything you do is dependent on someone else -- you're out there on your own.
"I mean obviously we're disappointed," she said. "The numbers aren't reflective of our ability. We need to start believing more in ourselves than we do right now."
