Ospreys will put their winning streak on the line beginning Monday in Macon, Ga., in a field that includes 10 ranked teams
Give the University of North Florida women’s golf team credit: they know how to seize momentum.
For the second time in three years, the Ospreys have won four full-field tournaments in a row during the spring season. After opening the season with a tie for fifth at the Paradise Invitational in Boca Raton, UNF has won, in order, the First Coast Classic at Deerwood, the Reynolds Lake Invitational at Eatonton, Ga., the UNF Collegiate at the Jacksonville Golf and Country Club and the Spring Break Shootout in Dade City.
The Ospreys go for a fifth in a row beginning on Monday at the Brickyard Collegiate in Macon, Ga. Ironically, that’s where their 2019 streak ended with a sixth-place finish in a tournament shortened to 36 holes by rain.
“We’re looking forward to a chance to play all three rounds in that tournament,” said senior Mindy Herrick. “We’re coming in with a lot of confidence. Golf is a sport with a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows. But we’re all playing well and we’re feeding off each other every round. One person can get in a zone but right now, the whole team is.”
The four-match winning streak can be put in further context by the current spring record of the top programs in the nation. South Carolina, ranked first in the nation by Golfstat, and No. 8 Arizona State have won three times. No other top-10 team has won more than twice and three, No. 4 LSU, No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Georgia, haven’t yet won.
Winning isn’t always required to post a high ranking. A steady diet of top-five finishes, against strong fields, can get it done.
But regardless of the strength of schedule, four titles in a row — twice — is tough to fathom.
Opsreys on a three-year roll
In the first six years in the UNF women’s golf program, beginning in 2012-13, the Ospreys won three tournaments — two of them ASUN titles.
But beginning with a fall event at Pinehurst, N.C., in 2018, the program has won 10 of its last 20 events.
“Every year is a new year but we hope this is the result of the culture we’ve created in this program from day one,” coach Joanne Berglund said. “There’s an expectation we have of the players on the golf course but also academically and in the community. It’s getting players to buy in and hold each other accountable.”
There’s one big difference between this streak and the one in 2019: the Ospreys have done it against stronger fields. Two years ago, no teams in the fields of the tournaments UNF won were ranked among the top-100 on Golfstat, the primary ranking system of college golf, at the time the tournaments were played.
That eventually hurt UNF because when they finished third in the ASUN tournament, they were passed over by the golf selection committee for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
Berglund made a concerted effort to seek out tournaments with stronger fields, which is not always easy with established conferences such as the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 dominating the oldest and most prestigious events.
She has done as well as can be expected. UNF beat a field including six ranked teams in the Paradise Invitational to begin the streak, and each field has included at least three ranked teams, with a total of 20.
None of those fields included a team from the SEC, ACC, Big 12 or Pac 12 but UNF’s victories have been enough to improve them to 42nd by Golfstat and 38th by Golfweek, the highest among ASUN teams. Kennesaw State is next at 68th and Florida Gulf Coast is 87th.
Two years ago, UNF was ranked 68th after their fourth victory in a row.
“Every year we try to improve our tournament schedule to get into stronger tournaments,” Berglund said. “It’s the way you get noticed.”
The Brickyard will be UNF’s toughest test to date. Ten of the 16 teams are ranked among the Golfstat top-100, led by No. 31 UCF. Also in the field are South Florida (58th), host Mercer (59th), Furman (61st), Kennesaw and Gulf Coast.
“The Brickyard will tell us a lot,” Berglund said. “As for how that might affect things if we don’t win the ASUN, I don’t want to jump ahead. We’re doing the best we can by focusing on the here and now.”
Doing it with depth
Herrick, who has four top-10 finishes this season, is one of two current starters who also played on the 2019 team, along with junior Daniela Gonzalez.
Two transfers are starting, graduate senior Marion Debove, a native of France who was the Horizon League player of the year in 2019 when she was at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; and senior Sara McKevitt, a Ponte Vedra High graduate who began her college career at USF.
Debove has four top-10s and leads the team in scoring average at 72.8.
Freshman Christin Eisenbeiss of Germany has contributed two top-10s and four top-25s, and tied for second at the Spring Break Shootout, the team’s highest individual finish this season. She has earned two ASUN player of the week awards.
It’s a mix of players long off the tee and deft with their short games and putting.
But they’re winning with depth. UNF has had at least two players among the top-10 in each tournament this season and in the most recent victory at the Lake Jovita Golf Club in Dade City, all four players who scored finished among the top-13.
What they have in common is a mentality that if they’re beating each other during a tournament, chances are they’re beating most of the other players as well.
“They do a great job of motivating each other,” Berglund said. “The cohesion is the strongest I’ve ever had.”
Ospreys stayed sharp in the fall
UNF’s success this spring also is remarkable because they had no fall season. The ASUN chose not to resume a golf schedule until January and only a few conferences, such as the SEC and Big 12, played fall golf.
The Ospreys were allowed to play and practice as often as they wanted during the fall (as long as they kept within the NCAA rule of no more than 20 hours per week) but without the motivation of the usual four of five tournaments, it might have been difficult to keep the team motivated.
They had to work it, but Berglund said their work ethic and competitiveness during team practices and events in the fall has paid off.
“We were together all the time, still worked out three days a week starting at 6 a.m., practiced and tried to keep everything as normal as possible, except we didn’t have tournaments to play,” Berglund said.
Herrick said the competitiveness among the team was enough to keep their instincts sharp.
“It would have been easy not to be motivated without anything to play for but we’re so competitive we pushed ourselves,” she said. “But it was also a great team-bonding experience. Wanting to beat each other brought us closer. When now, when we see that someone has made a couple of birdies, we tell ourselves, ‘I want to play that well,’ and we try harder.”
Berglund said the team’s unity has been helped by adding Courtney Cobb, a Providence graduate, as an assistant coach.
“Courtney is closer to their age and she’s brought this energy to the program that has been very good for them,” she said.
Regardless of what happens at the Brickyard Collegiate, the Ospreys will be the favorites, on paper, to win the ASUN tournament on April 18-20 at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, Ga.
A victory there will result in an automatic NCAA bid. If the Ospreys stay among the top-40 on the national rankings, it might be good enough for an at-large bid.
Herrick said no one’s taking anything for granted.
“It’s going to keep getting harder to win because everyone is chasing us,” she said.