Indiana University Athletics
Travel Diary with Amber Lindgren
2/11/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Feb. 11, 2009
Senior Amber Lindgren chronicles her experiences at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic, Feb. 8-10 in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.
Travel Day and Practice Round: Feb. 6th and 7th
We shoveled our way through the foot and a half inches of snow to the new Indianapolis Airport and flew to sunny San Juan, Puerto Rico late Friday night. Along with the team, Coach Wallman and Coach Brophy, Janet Kittell was able to make the trip with us. Saturday morning came early as we were awoken by the wildlife of the tropical rainforest outside of our resort. Teeing off around one o'clock we had an excellent practice round. Our team played the game "fairways and greens", getting a point for each fairway and green that is hit on your first ball. The winner of the game picks what Puerto Rican cuisine we would be dominating later that night. Since we weren't too sure with the area, we were recommended the restaurant called "Richie's". The restaurant overlooked the city and we were greeted by the owner for choosing his place. As we enjoyed our shrimp, steak, ribs, chicken parm, and many more delicious choices, we watched the famous music video of the "Thriller" on the big screen. After dinner we had a quick team meeting, discussing what outfit and ribbons we were going to sport, and the strategies of the upcoming days. Then everyone headed to the comfy beds to dream about birdies and eagles.
1st Round of the tournament: Feb. 8th
5:45 came early as "Let it Rock" blared on our alarm. We suited up for the big day, ironed our uniforms and drove to the breakfast buffet at the course. After an hour or so of warm up, we all teed off at 8:00am, on our assigned holes. The showers predicted, seemed to hold off, for the most part, until we finished the round. Laura posted a nice round with even par! After the completion of lunch, we practiced some more and headed for the resort for the showers and the upcoming dinner. The place of choice for tonight was the "Brass Cactus", where we saw some local life and the Minnesota Golf Team. Dinner was excellent and hopefully would digest us to low rounds tomorrow.
2nd Round of the tournament: Feb 9th
February 9th woke up to be a special day for Anita, her 21st birthday. As we ate breakfast and warmed up, we saw greatness in our near future. Unfortunately a torrential down pour arrived instead and delayed us a half an hour and closed down the range for warm up. After the rain subsided, we headed to the carts to disperse to our holes. The second round went a little bit better than the first for the team. The rain and wind made the Trump International Course challenging. As our white shirts had a bit of mud scattered on them from the wet conditions, we hoped to clean up our mistakes with some practice after the round. As another down pour came into sunny Puerto Rico, we decided to call it a day and go to a Mexican Restaurant, called "Lolitas" for dinner. We must have been voted most popular team, because shortly after we arrived, Purdue and Kent State poured in as well. Most of us fell in love with the cheese fondue, loaded nachos, and super supreme burritos! Following dinner we went to "Coldstone" to further celebrate Anita's birthday. As we ordered our treats of all kinds, we performed a limbo contest under the line dividers. No one successfully won, but we had a lot of good tries and made friends with the locals, or at least Coach B did!
3rd Round of the tournament: Feb. 10th
We woke up, loaded our bags, ate breakfast and got in a good warm up, all before 7:30 am! They fired the shotgun to initiate play, and we were off to the greens to make some birdies. The weather started off nice and sunny, as we cheered each other on from the fairways. However the weather took a sudden turn as we headed into our back nine, the winds started to pick up and shortly after that came the rain. But we all successfully survived the round at Trump International. The team improved once again, moving up a spot and bettering the first two round totals. Laura was soon delighted to hear she was Co-Champion of the Lady Puerto Rican Classic. She was given a crystal bowl and hugs from her teammates. We were off to the airport for our 4:40pm flight into Atlanta, and finally back to Bloomington!
Players Mentioned
