Stay The Course

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

Entering the final round of stroke play at the NCAA Championships last season, the North Carolina women's golf team sat in 13th place, largely the result of a disappointing back nine in the previous round.

Only the top eight teams advanced to match play. So with their season nearing an end, the Tar Heels responded with a valiant effort, shooting their best round of the week by 14 shots.

Still, it wasn't enough.

UNC fell just one shot shy of reaching match play. And since then, the players remaining from last season's squad have been motivated by that result, aware of how close they came and their ability to compete with the top programs in the country.

To take the next step this spring season – which begins Sunday at the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate in New Orleans – coach Jan Mann said it will require more attention to detail, no matter what challenges the Tar Heels face. Thus, the team's motto is "Stay the course," which emphasizes love, fight and focus.

"You've got to love competing, you've got to love practicing, love your teammates," said Mann, who is in her ninth season at UNC. "You've got to be able to fight. When things aren't going your way, (you've got) to be able to handle adversity. And how mature are you to be able to stay focused when things aren't going your way?"

For in the game of golf, that's more often than not the case.

Inevitable frustrations can arise from attempting to hit a little white ball exactly where you want on a consistent basis. Those can then be compounded by the various conditions you might face.

But Mann and associate head coach Aimee Neff, who is in her first season at UNC after spending last season as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt, have tried to help ease players' feelings of discontent on the course.

Specifically, Mann said she's incorporated lessons from Pia Nilsson of Vision54, a program and golf school based at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. Those encourage golfers to remove any negative thoughts from their minds after hitting a shot and instead ask the following questions.

"Is it great? Is it good? Is it good enough to make a par or a birdie?" Mann explained. "And then, 'It's not what I wanted, but can I still make par?'

"If they are thinking like that, they don't have to hit perfect shots," Mann continued. "These girls, they are perfectionists. … They want to be perfect, and in golf, that's just not feasible. You can't be perfect. So, they have to learn to accept."

Doing so, Mann said, can be especially trying for seniors, who typically place additional pressure on themselves to excel during their final season.

This year, the Tar Heels roster lists only one graduating senior, Bryana Nguyen. And before the fall season even started, she said Mann met with her and they talked about the importance of Nguyen relishing her senior year.

"That conversation really helped," Nguyen said, "because now it's more about enjoying the experience of being a senior and my last semester here, rather than playing well as a senior."

Even then, Nguyen, who posted a 74.17 stroke average during the fall season, figures to be key to how UNC performs as a team this spring. Freshman Ava Bergner, junior Kelly Whaley and sophomore Brynn Walker are also likely mainstays in the Tar Heels' lineup. Each of them registered a sub-74 stroke average in the fall.

Behind them, UNC will look to build off last year's ninth-place finish at the NCAA Championships, its best since 2011.

"We talk about it, and we were so close," said Bergner of missing match play. "So I guess that's a little bit of an extra motivation to be even better this year. We're super excited for the season, especially the part in May, when we really get to compete with the best schools around and show what we've got, show what we've worked for."

Until then, they'll continue staying the course.

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Ava Bergner

Bryana Nguyen

Brynn Walker

Kelly Whaley

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