UGA Women’s Golf Has High Hopes and Goals For the 2023 Season

Micahya Costen

Athens, GA February 18

The women’s golf team is off to a decent start as they finished their performance in the San Diego State Classic last week, and is preparing for their upcoming tournament at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate meet.

The First day of the SDSU classic was a bit rocky as the weather fluctuated with rain and the course was challenging. The end result after the final day, however, turned into a second-place win for the team and an individual win for senior, Catarina Don. This places her as the third UGA golfer this season to earn a win.

“I’ve been struggling mentally, and physically, and got a bunch of injuries. And it’s nice three years later to be able to win again. And it gives me confidence going into the next part of the season,” Catarina Don said in a Media Day interview.

Head coach, Josh Brewer also said in a Bulldog All-Access interview that the tournament provided a lot of positives along with learning experiences. The team has a new volunteer assistant coach, coach Andrea Gaston, who is volunteering while assistant coach, Coach Ember Holloway, is on maternity leave. Brewer says the situation in itself was its own unique challenge but the girls are getting to know her and look up to her influence as a former head coach with three national titles.

“We also learned that one or two shots can cost you a golf tournament. And it did. And so, it’s the importance of trying to stay really focused the entire time in the competition,” Brewer said in a Media Day interview.

Brewer also says that the team wants tee times in the national championship played out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get a chance. From there, a few more goals they had was to get into the finals of the SEC championship and continue to understand their weaknesses now, because in April and May it’ll be too late.

Brewer says an obvious weakness for them is par-five scoring. He says that they’re trying to look at why it’s happening and train with a better strategy for the upcoming tournaments.

Fifth year, Jo Hua Hong, says that the best advice she’s gotten from her coaches during her collegiate career is that attitude on the course is the biggest thing rather than results.

“No matter what score you finish in this hole, make sure your body language is right because I think it’s going to help you get a better score indirectly, and also the teammates from far away,” Hong said.

Jenny Bae, who is also a fifth year, spoke a little about their last performances in the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate meet.

“ We’ve played there for a couple of years and we haven’t been able to show the result that we wanted to. But, I think our main focus and our issue is that we don’t trust our targets while we’re out there. The point of view that we see through our eyes and the way our brain works is kind of different. We know and we can see our target, but mentally we can’t trust it, Bae said. “I think if we just communicate with one another and understand that even if it looks a little more tight and narrow, that if we can trust and hit it that way, we’ll be ok.”

The team is set to play in South Carolina for the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate meet on Feb. 27-March 1st.