Sept. 10, 2007
Fall Sports Media Day Quotes - Denise St. Pierre, Head Women's Golf Coach
8/27/07
Opening Statement
We are excited about this year. We've got three championships that we are hosting this year, which is unusual for golf. Golf tends to be that sport that plays away more than it plays home, just due to the nature of how we set up our events and run tournaments. We are the host of the Big Ten Championships this year, which happens in April. For the fall, what we do is traditionally host a tournament called the Lady Northern, which whoever is hosting the Big Tens, hosts this fall preview as part of an opportunity for the Big Ten schools to come in and have a, if you will, practice round or just to get an idea of the golf course before the championships in April. So we host the Lady Northern. It has a combination of Big Ten teams as well as a few invited teams that are outside of our conference that come and play in that. It's a great event. That's September 22nd and 23rd and then the following weekend we are still going to host our Nittany Lion Invitational, which we traditionally do have in the fall.
Traditionally, our invitational week we tend to draw schools from this area of the country than we do the Big Ten so we decided to keep our home invitational on the schedule as well as hosting the Northern so we get a different field. It gives my team another opportunity to be at home, which is fantastic. I'm just excited that we have this opportunity and especially on a golf course that we recently have done some renovations to, so it's kind of showcasing it for the first time. Any time you create a new hole or a new facility, it takes some time for maturing, but it's getting there and we're very excited about that and our opportunities to practice out at our facility are now just expanded. It's fantastic. Now we don't have the excuse, or our players can't give us the excuse that they don't have a putting surface or a place to practice some of those short game shots that are so necessary to really excel in our game. We're really looking forward to it; we're looking forward to this year.
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We've got six returning players, although I feel a little bit like a contact-sport coach because I have already an injury list, which is unusual for my sport, but I already have
Sara Lester who I thought would come back this year as a senior and do some things for us right away, had to have some emergency surgery in July on her shoulder, so she is going to be out. When she returns, we don't know yet, it just depends on how well the rehab goes and kind of keeping our fingers crossed that maybe that's going to happen at the end of the month. Also, Lindsey Cullen called me about a week ago and said that some things were flaring up with her ankle or foot, so we've got some questions there. So she's kind of out for right now.
We are kind of looking towards some young talent that's come into the program this fall to maybe take some leadership roles early. We've got some international flavor on our team this year, which is kind of exciting. We have Giulia from Turin, Italy. Great player. She's actually been very used to being in the states. The last two years she was at the Ledbetter Golf Academy down in Florida, so she's not quite so on foreign soil for her, other than maybe when December. January comes around and she's quite not used to that. She does have a little cold weather back home anyway. Brianna Malcolmson is from Australia, so perhaps, we'll see some light at the end of this tunnel here with some new people stepping into some of these leadership rules. Certainly, Katherine Murphy, Megan Padua and Christin Pacacha, those three are consistent starters for me or have been in the past and I look to them as well for stepping up to the plate a little bit in this early part of the season. We have probably one of the, I would say, top schedules in the country and one of the most competitive schedules I have had for my team in quite some time. Just week-in and week-out we're playing in some fantastic events and up against some of the top teams in the country, which is only going to make us better, and certainly, if we fare well at these tournaments, it's going to help us to really move up in our rankings which is what we're looking for.
Q: Any interesting stories on how you found those new foreign players on the team?
A: I didn't get the U.S. players I wanted (laughter). It's really interesting. Certainly, any more nowadays, with the internet and with there being so many services out there that you're able to identify some players that you might not have seen. There are so many junior tours out there now where you are seeing some of these players and certainly Giulia being right at the Ledbetter Academy, we were able to know about her because she was here in the states. Brianna, I found out about because I had a friend from Australia that played collegiate golf and she was her coach. So I got a little inside scoop on that and was able to bring her over. It's kind of just a little luck and a little knowing what is out there through other people.
Q: Do you know who your starters are going to be?
A: I really don't. I just met with the team earlier this morning to give them all of the rules and everything. At the beginning of the season, we always have a -- I call it the "Lady Lion Open" -- it's really a qualifier to where you are going to sit as far as your ranking on the team where the first five individuals out of that (will be the starters to being the season). We play seven rounds of golf until we go on our first trip. So those first five will be my first five on the road. I'm going to say that I'm going to be looking toward Christin Pacacha, Megan Padua and Katherine Murphy as probably being a solid first three. I really think we will see a few of our freshman step up, which will be a good thing to get them out there playing right away is always going to help down the road.
Q: Any summer champions to report on?
A: They've (members of the golf team) played in some of the big tournaments for the women out there, the Women's Eastern or Women's Western and some other state championships. I don't have any champions to report on, but they do get out there and play in various events throughout the summer because it's really what's going to set them apart when they get here in the fall. I just don't have any great success stories just yet, but they're saving those for a few weeks from now.
