Indiana University Athletics
Central District Invitational Diary- Anita Gahir
2/20/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Feb. 20, 2008
Sophomore Anita Gahir recounts the team's trip to the Central District Invitational tournament in Parrish, Fla. earlier this week.
This past week we travelled to warm and sunny Parrish, Florida for our first tournament of the spring season. All of us were excited to get a chance to travel south and play against some highly ranked teams. We left Bloomington Saturday afternoon, travelling to the airport in style. We were lucky to get a fantastic stretch Excursion, for what would feel like a very quick ride to Indianapolis. Although it was hard to say goodbye to the excursion, we did in fact manage to part ways with it and catch our flight. We flew to Tampa, and arrived to Parrish after a 45 minute drive at around 9:30pm. We were greeted by the three host families we would be staying with for our time there. We were also greeted by a great dinner, where we all sat and got to know one another. All families were incredibly nice, and very excited to have us stay with them. After dinner, the girls and I quickly gathered around their TV to catch the last few minutes of the Indiana/Michigan State men's basketball game. Needless to say, the win by the Indiana men's team was very inspiring to us, and got us even more excited to get the tournament started. After dinner, the coaches and team split up to different houses and called it a night.
Sunday was a special treat for us, and the team was able to sleep in before our afternoon practice round. We met up for breakfast at 11am at the home of Lauren and Kellye's host family. Breakfast was delicious, as we were offered each of our individual favorites: eggs, bacon, cereal, pancakes, fruit and much more to get us off to good start before a day of practice. We teed off at 1:30pm and played a solid round of golf, strategizing the best plays for each hole. The round was full of jokes and laughter, while we challenged each other to tough shots around the course. 6:30pm came around, and a great dinner was served at the club. There was an extravagant amount of food for all players, coaches and host families, not to mention a dessert table that could have fed a small community. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal, and the team met up for our pre-tournament meeting to go over goals and final thoughts before the big day.
Monday morning was a bright morning in Parrish, and we were all ready to shine. We were all very excited to get started at our first tournament, on a warm but tough day with 36-holes. The team played strong throughout the day standing in about 3rd for the majority of the first round. The second round was a bit tougher for us, with a rain shower, and as fatigue started to set in. It was clear that all teams were working very hard to get through what most likely their first 36-hole day in a few months. We finished the day in T7th with Notre Dame, with Michigan State leading the event. After the round, a few teammates practiced, and then headed to dinner, to be held at the home of Elaine, Laura, and my host family. We were all extremely hungry when arriving at their home, and snacks and dinner were ready to go! The dinner was a perfectly cooked ham with great potato side dishes. Soon after dinner, the team met up to go over the day's high and low points. While we felt good about our effort and performance through the day, while being eager to improve and shoot lower Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, there was a great vibe amongst the team and we got ready and pumped up for our final 18. This day was much tougher than any we had seen on the trip, with cooler temperatures and the wind being a much more serious factor. We all fought hard and came out shooting the 4th best score of the day, 306. We were pleased with our 7th place finish, and were happy to come out on top of some well-ranked teams. The tournament saw some great highlights and we all had some positives to take away from the event, and use towards our next one in Las Vegas in a few weeks.
We left the River Wilderness course around 1:45pm, said thanks to our host families for their hospitality and support, and were off to Bloomington: excited to see the stretch excursion, not so much the snow.
