Kansas University women’s golf coach Nicole Hol-lingsworth is hoping to avoid a sophomore slump.
“The first year went great,” said Hollingsworth, who came to KU from Ohio University last summer. “We had a lot of success. We didn’t finish as well as I thought we would in the Big 12, but we’re looking to improve.
Nicole Hollingsworth
“We improved last year and hope to be able to do it again this year.”
The Jayhawks, it seems, are looking for bigger and better things all around literally.
“This schedule for our whole year is real exciting,” Hollingsworth said. “We start out at Myrtle Beach in what is supposedly the largest tournament in the world for college. Right now there are 34 teams with a max of 36 on two golf courses. We’re really looking forward to that one.”
KU is looking forward to that tournament among others.
“We’re going back to Pinehurst which is a big one in the spring,” Hollingsworth said of the site of the PGA’s U.S. Open in 1999. “Our schedule’s really going to be good. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to have success. They’re all important, but things for first time like the largest in the world, that’s exciting.”
Although the Jayhawks are down three players from a year ago losing seniors Carrie Padden and Sue Tessary to graduation, and Jill Simpson, who left the team during the season they are not out of talent.
Leading the way will be seniors-to-be Ashley Bishop and Sarah Mahoney, Hollingsworth said.
Mahoney, of Overland Park, has the best returning scoring average with 79.69 strokes per round. She also had two of the Jayhawks’ best rounds, turning in a 73 (at the Northern Illinois University Springlake Intercollegiate where she finished 11th) and a 74 (at the Big 12 Fall Preview where she was eighth).
Bishop, of Franklin, Ind., has the second-best scoring average at 81.03 and the highest finish among the returners a fourth-place showing at the 2000 Carolinas Collegiate Classic at Pinehurst.
“Sarah had the best scoring average on the team last year and led us in fall. She had some good tournaments,” Hollingsworth noted. “Ashley has been here for four years and is another senior. She had some real good tournaments and played well at Pinehurst. She had some success and is working hard this summer.
“Everybody is working real hard this summer. All the players are playing and hopefully that will pay off in the fall.”
Also expected to contribute are senior-to-be Andi Schultz, of Denver, Colo.; and a solid class of sophomores-to-be consisting of Tiffany Kruggel, of Topeka; Heather Rose, of Martinsville, Ind.; and Kristy Straub, of Great Bend.
“Those three (sophomores) also are on the road playing in a lot of tournaments this summer,” Hollingsworth said. “We’re improving and looking forward to the season.”
To top it off, the Jayhawks are gaining the services of two incoming freshmen in Jennifer Bawanan and Crystal Thayer.
“I’ll tell you what, I think they’ll be pretty good,” Hollingsworth said. “They play a lot of golf because they’re both from California. I’m real excited.”
Hollingsworth had a chance to watch Bawanan, of Modesto, Calif., who finished tied for 48th in the American Junior Golf Assn.’s Lucent Technologies Championship at Eagle Bend from June 19-22.
“That was great,” Hol-lingsworth said of the local event. “Hopefully they’ll be back. I can’t talk about who I was looking at, but there were a lot of coaches there.”
As pleased as she was about the AJGA event being in town, Hollingsworth is even happier about being in town herself.
“The University of Kansas is a great place to be,” the KU coach said. “I was pretty comfortable coming in and with time things just get better.”
