JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown women’s golf team has been more successful than the men’s in recent years, but head coach Zach Hale is hoping to elevate both programs together when they hit the course for the season opener.
Hale is heading into his third season as the head coach of both teams, which he says is challenging but rewarding.
“It definitely presents a challenge, you’re dealing with different emotions and how to handle different situations between the men and the women,” Hale said. “So, trying to balance that can be a little bit tough but all in all, it’s fairly similar with similar drills and trying to push them and develop them with their skills going forward as well. It’s definitely a little bit of a juggling act but we manage to make it the best for both teams.”
The Jimmies open the season on Monday, Aug. 29, when they take part in the first day of the Minnesota State-Mankato Maverick Invite at the Fairbault Golf and Country Club in Fairbault, Minnesota.
Before the season starts, the Jimmies golfers went through three rounds of qualifying to determine the lineup ahead of the season opener. Hale said the men’s team had scores of 295, 284, and 287 across the three rounds. Those scores are right on target for what Hale said he wants his team to achieve and gives him hopes of a very successful season for the men’s team.
“My goal for them, I told them at the beginning of the year, ‘we need to average about 296 as a team.’ So they definitely stepped up to the plate in qualifying with that, now we just need to carry it into tournament play which starts next week. I definitely have aspirations for this team, we definitely have the talent level to compete at a high level. I think we’re definitely in the conversation I believe to contend for a conference championship this year.”
Hale said in qualifying the women’s team had scores of 351, 337, and 336. Hale said he was happy to see the day-by-day improvement and wants to continue to see improvement out of senior Jayme Carlson and sophomore Kyra Vogel.
“My goal for them is to finish in the top three or four in every single tournament that we play and hopefully the same for our conference championship come the spring,” Hale said.
The Jimmies will be relying on senior leadership from the combined seven seniors. During the 2021-22 season, the Jimmies men’s team had an average score of 304.68 and the women’s team had an average score of 352.61. Hale said the men’s captains are Carter Wells and Jackson Worner. In order for the teams to lower their scores, senior Carter Janssen said he and his teammates need to keep their confidence and continue to work hard in practice.
“I think we need to stick to our game plan, get better, practice, time on the range, time on the putting green,” Janssen said. “We’re all really good golfers and we know what we need to do to compete so if we just stick to our game plan, go out there, compete and be ourselves, we should compete fine.”
As one of the leaders of the Jimmies program, Carlson said she is looking for her team to continue to stay positive regardless of what is happening.
“As a team, I think it’s really important to be encouraging of your teammates and not to be so worried about maybe what happens on one hole but looking at the round as a whole,” Carlson said.
The men’s team hasn’t won a conference championship since 2012 and the women’s team haven’t won one since 2018. One of the people who was on that 2018 women’s team is Jenna Knutson who is returning to the program as a graduate assistant.
“I think we got a really good team this year,” Janssen said. “We brought back our number one who is really good. A couple of guys had a really good summer. It’s gonna be a really good year and we have some depth within our team too. I think everyone is in there for contention can play a little and it will be interesting to see how we do.”
Hale said he expects big seasons from his experienced golfers in junior Ben Schaefer and sophomore Max Noffsinger. Hale particularly highlights Schaefer after the junior booked his spot as the number one player in the lineup with scores of 79, 70, and 69 in qualifying. He expects Noffsinger to come back with a vengeance after he struggled down the stretch last year. In his last three tournaments, Noffsinger shot a combined 238. Hale said he also expects a big season out of sophomore Gehrig Geiss. As far as the women’s golfers go, Hale is looking for big seasons out of Carlson, Vogel, and Faith Justesen.
Carlson is one of three seniors on the women’s team and she said she and Teagan Fee and Haley Malone work hard to make the team an inclusive environment for the younger players and that, the happiness of the players helps translate to success on the course.
“I think when I was a younger player at Jamestown, the things that helped me succeed were the older players making me feel a part of the team so we work hard to make people feel included and do a lot of team bonding,” Carlson said . “We also encourage each other to stay positive in the round. We like to wave at each other in the round to keep the spirits up.”