Murray State University Athletics
OVC Women's Golf Championship Preview
4/14/2006 5:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
The season begins when school starts in the fall and it ends with the biggest prize on the schedule, the Ohio Valley Golf Championship. The
MSU head coach Velvet Milkman, a six-time OVC Coach of the Year, saw the Racers come up short in 2005 of a league record fourth straight title. She said MSU might enter the event somewhat under the radar.
“I'm excited about our chances,” Milkman said. “We haven't shot the kind of scores we feel that we are capable of, but I feel like we are peaking at the right time.”
Indeed, the Racers have no tournament victories in 10 events from last fall to the present. However, they did play a stretch of six events in which they scored in the top-10 each time. In the fall, MSU finished fourth of 14 teams at the Arkansas State Invitational and in March they finished third out of 11 teams in their own event, trailing winner Cincinnati by only eight strokes.
“Because of the numbers we've shot this season, people may be overlooking us a little, which is good for us,” Milkman said. “Last year we were the favorite and were going for an OVC record four straight titles and we were under a lot of pressure and it got to us.”
Milkman said, her squad doesn't have that kind of pressure this time around.
“Our goal as a team is to have fun. Relax and enjoy the event and then the results will take care of themselves.” Milkman added, “I have two seniors on our squad (Julie Bennett & Ashley Kelbough) and they want to make their last OVC tournament a fun one.”
The Racers enter the OVC Tournament having had Julie Bennett and Christi Baron named the All-OVC second team.
The eight OVC women's teams compete beginning Monday at Drake Creek Golf Course in
The course at Drake Creek course is a worthy test for the OVC. It also hosted the Kentucky State Girls Tournament last fall.
“They key to Drake Creek is to hit it straight off the tee, you can get in trouble out of the fairway,” Milkman said. “The course has very big greens so if you don't hit it close you have to putt the long ones well.”
Drake Creek will play rather long, but the 6,178 total yards is skewed somewhat because there are only three par three's instead of the usual four.
“The course will not be set up to give an advantage to the long hitter,” Milkman said.
“Any player in the field can play this course.”
One of the defenses Drake Creek may hit the players with is wind, depending on the direction it is coming from. In the spring, prevailing winds are from the south which makes some of the harder holes like one, three and seven on the front, plus 10 and 11 on the back play down wind. But if the wind comes out of the north, all of those holes play very difficult into the wind.
Milkman said the course is excellent condition.
“We're very excited to be hosting the OVC tournament again,” Milkman said.
“Todd Butts, the golf professional at Drake Creek has gone out of his way to make this event special. We're very lucky to have a pro like him working with us to make the OVC a successful event.”
The tournament has three of the top club professionals in the region acting as rules officials. Todd Butts, the host pro from Drake Creek and Jason Steeley from the country Club of Paducah, the host course for the men's tournament next week, and Kevin Rhinehart from Rolling Hills Country Club in Paducah.
