Looking to improve on their season-opening performance at the Schooner Classic, the Irish traveled to Texas this past weekend to compete in the Texas State Jim West Challenge Invite and finished in ninth place amongst 15 teams.
Notre Dame started the event strongly and found itself in second place after the first round, but it ultimately fell down the leaderboard over the final two rounds and finished with an overall team score of 8-over-par 872 for the competition.
“Well, our goal is always to try and be competitive and win,” Irish head coach Susan Holt said on her team’s performance. “Obviously, the first round we were six under, two shots out of the lead and certainly put ourselves in position to do that, but we just weren’t able to maintain it. And we were just playing in a really good tournament field [with] a lot of good teams, and we have to learn to stay in it and get that going. There were some positives, obviously, that came out of it. We had a lot of good individual rounds throughout the tournament. We just lacked overall consistency, so we just have to keep working on it.”
All five members of the Irish starting lineup finished in the top 50 of the event’s leaderboard, including senior Jordan Ferreira, who led the way for the Irish by finishing in 26th with a 1-over 217.
“Jordan has a ton of experience for us,” Holt said. “She’s pretty much played in every single event, I think, since she’s come to campus, so it’s good that she is playing well. I think one of the strengths of our team is that we don’t have to rely on one player all the time to carry us. We have five players that at any one time can go out and play good golf, so it was nice to see Jordan have a good tournament.”
Holt also acknowledged, however, that in order to compete at the highest level, the team has to improve its play and match its performance to its talent.
“We just have to get better,” Holt said. “Like I said, the tournament field was very strong — there were a lot of top-25 teams there with a lot of good individual players — and if we’re going to play in that kind of competition, we have to be ready to compete. We have the talent to do it, [so] we just have to do it all the time. It just is what it is. … I told the girls when the tournament was over, I really didn’t feel like other teams beat us, we just beat ourselves. We made a lot of big numbers across the board — doubles, triples — and then we would hit it close, and then not capitalize and make birdies. So we just need to be more consistent, and it’s there — we just have to do it when we need to."
Ultimately, however, Holt said she was pleased with the invaluable experience tournaments like these provide, particularly as early in the season as it currently is for the Irish.
“At the level that we’re playing at, we’re fortunate that we do have opportunities to play in the events that we are playing in,” she said. “I think it’s a great experience for our players, and that’s how you get better — by playing good competition — so I think the takeaway is that we’re good, but we have to be better and we are capable of better. … We’re in the ACC, and if it’s not the most competitive conference, it’s one of the top two. So it’s a great experience for us and something you want to take advantage of.”
The Irish will compete next at the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational, hosted by the University of Texas, on Monday and Tuesday.
