Athena Nguyen hits an approach shot. (courtesy of Alex Paz)

The No. 3 WashU women’s golf team placed fourth with a combined score of 19 over par at the WashU Spring Invite on March 22 after the second day of the tournament was canceled due to flooding at Crescent Farms Golf Course in Eureka, Missouri. The No. 42 The University of Wisconsin–Stout won the match with a combined team score of 14 over par.

While the cancellation of the second day of play deprived WashU of an opportunity to improve their team and individual scores, the tournament, according to head coach Dave Reinhardt, motivates the Bears for the rest of the season.

Eight hours of rain early Sunday morning made the course unplayable. After consulting with another coach, the golf course, and surveying the course conditions, Reinhardt decided the course conditions were unplayable, canceling the second day of the tournament.

“They had three inches of rain from 1 o’clock to 8 to 9:30 in the morning, and that golf course is in a floodplain,” Reinhardt said. “It doesn’t drain well at all, so there were hundreds of puddles, basically an unplayable golf course.”

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we were all disappointed in our day one results … and we were looking forward to day two,” he said. “We knew we were going to hopefully … come back strong and finish really, really well. So it just gives us more hunger, since we did not perform up to our standards.”

The trio of senior Sydney Kuo, junior Athena Nguyen, and sophomore Amy Beanblossom led WashU to a seventh-place tied finish with scores of 74 (+3) each. Grinnell’s Kavya Keshav won the tournament with a score of 66 (-5), with a round including six birdies.

Both Nguyen and Beanblossom found success on the front nine, coming through the turn one under par and even par respectively. A series of bogeys on the back nine moved the duo back to three over each. Kuo entered the turn two over par after three bogeys and one birdie. A series of birdies and bogeys on the back nine finished her round at three over. 

The finish was both Nguyen and Beanblossom’s highest placing of the season so far.

For Nguyen, the result came from what she described as a “[not] very good fall semester.” Over the offseason, she worked on reframing her golf game and focused on her short game — putting and chipping.

“Golf is a very greedy sport,” Nguyen said. “Going into the offseason was a little bit of a break for me, and it took a little bit of pressure off me. … I entered the round thinking, ‘Wow, I’m so grateful that I get to play a round of golf today, and it’s a beautiful day.’”

Senior Paige Warren and first-year Nicole McGuire rounded out the Bears’ top five finishers with respective finishes of 13th and 16th place and scores of 75 (+4) and 76 (+5).

Despite this season being her first in collegiate golf, McGuire has been a consistent contributor on the team, travelling to and playing in every event so far this season.

“Nicole is just an ultimate grinder,” Reinhardt said. “She’s never going to give up. And I think that shows on her in her golf game. … So for her to come in and play all the tournaments so far and travel everywhere as a first year has just been amazing.”

WashU’s top five finishers will travel to Pacific Grove, California, to compete in the University of California, Santa Cruz invite on March 29-30. For Nguyen, who lives an hour from the course, the invite “means the world” to her.

“To have this opportunity to fly home and play a course that I [have] been to before is super awesome,” she said. “Some of my teammates have never been to Northern California, so the opportunity to take them around, kind of all the places that I’ve always mentioned, it’s really amazing.”