Spending 10 hours on a golf course trudging eight miles through rain and snow, and carrying golf clubs may not sound like everyone’s favorite way to spend a weekend. But for members of Corban’s golf team, this has been their lives for the past few weekends.
“It gets really fun when you’re walking courses with hills,” said freshman David Patterson from Camas, Wash.
But the team has much to celebrate about. Not only have records been broken, but the men’s team also has the privilege of hosting the NAIA national tournament at their home course, Creekside Country Club, held on May 22-25. Corban’s team gets an automatic berth in the tournament. Patterson said this is something the whole team is excited about.
“It’s something to kind of look forward to and continue to get better each day for,” he said.
Joey Duwe, the team’s senior captain from Kingston, Wash., said he has been looking forward to hosting the national tournament for over a year now. Among other things, it has helped with the recruitment process of incoming freshmen both this year and next.
Duwe himself almost qualified his sophomore and junior years, but with a successful season so far, he remains optimistic about his chances of competing in the tournament.
“We just hope we play well and compete with the other teams,” Duwe said.
Duwe has broken three school records this season, some of which have been his previous records. Recently, he finished in 6th place overall at the April 9 and 10 College of Idaho Invitational, where the men’s team took 4th place overall.
On the women’s side, improvement as been a consistent trend. For sophomore Katie Wixon from Roseville, Calif., the College of Idaho Invitational was quite the breakthrough.
“This last weekend was really good for us,” she said. At the beginning of the season, assistant coach Steve Landis gave the women’s team a goal of 350, and at this past tournament, they came within three points of reaching that goal. Before that, they were in the high 300s collectively. Overall, the team scored 4th place at the tournament.