Although the 2014 Canadian University/College Championships did not go how the Carleton Ravens golf team wanted, Samantha Coates, one of the Ravens golfers competing, said it was a historic achievement for the program.
Four Carleton golfers travelled to Winnipeg and competed at nationals from June 3-6 at the Southwood Golf & Country Club—a number that Coates said is significant because it marked the most Ravens to ever attend the event.
“We’ll always be able to say that we made athletic history [at Carleton],” she said.
Three Ravens women attend
Coates said she and two other members of the Carleton women’s golf team, Emily Boyko and Eva Johnston-Iafelice, became the first women to ever reach nationals in the history of the women’s golf team.
Coates finished the tournament with a Ravens-best score of 33-over par after three rounds, while her teammates Boyko and Johnston-Iafelice finished with scores of +76 and +86, respectively.
Boyko said the team was out of sync from the beginning because they could only field three golfers for the tournament instead of four, as she said her teammate Sheila McKeen was deemed ineligible for the tournament.
“It’s sort of a disadvantage when you’re competing against schools who have four girls, because they count the top-three [scorers] and drop the lowest,” Boyko said. “That made it a bit difficult for us, but it didn’t stop us from going out there and playing the best we could.”
The combined individual results put the Ravens in last place in the women’s team competition, but Coates said it is important to think about it from a different perspective.
“We can say we’re one of the 10 or 11 best teams in Canada. Not a lot of other schools can say that,” she said.
For the three women, Coates said despite the disappointing showing, it marked a perfect end of the road that began when they all joined the team together in their respective first years at Carleton back in 2010.
“I’ve been on the team for four years now, so being able to actually do something this big during our time here is awesome,” she said. “And in the four years, the team has gotten better and grown every year.”
But with all three of the national-attending golfers graduating in June, Coates said she will be the only returning member of the team when she comes back to get her master’s degree.
In fact, Coates said both coaches will leave next year as well. She said Gail Blake will step down as the coach of the Ravens women’s golf team along with her fellow coach, Debbie O’Brien.
Kowalchuk represents CU men
While it was the first time the Ravens women’s golf team had sent members, it marked the second straight year where a Carleton male represented the school in the individual component.
Kolton Kowalchuk qualified for nationals during the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championship Oct. 21-22, which he said made him the second Ravens male player to ever attend the Canadian championships – after Paul Larsh made Ravens history in 2013.
Kowalchuk finished his debut at nationals with a total of 40-over par through three rounds, putting him in last place in the individual men’s category.
But he said his outlook was positive despite his overall showing.
“Obviously it didn’t go as well as I wanted to, but it was definitely an experience,” he said. “I kind of went in with the mentality just to have fun, and I definitely enjoyed it. I met a lot of good players, so hopefully next year I can kind of build on that if I’m able to get back.”
Ravens men’s coach Andrew Donaldson said Kowalchuk did not play his best, but said it was good just to see him compete at nationals.
“We just tried to get [Kowalchuk] to focus on being proud and enthusiastic that he’s representing Carleton at the national level, but his score definitely didn’t reflect his true ability and how he played in the OUA championship, which earned him a spot at nationals,” Donaldson said.
Being a links golf course characterized by an open landscape with a lack of trees, Southwood featured challenges the Ravens golfers were unaccustomed to, according to Kowalchuk.
“It was tough because you don’t have the reference points you have when you hit shots on parkland courses, and obviously the wind comes into effect big time on courses like that,” he said.
In addition, he said part of the reason the University of Manitoba team had such success in the men’s division was their familiarity with courses such as Southwood.
“I think having that experience playing in windy conditions, and hitting the shots you need to hit, it definitely helps being from [Manitoba], but on the other hand you saw a lot of good golfers from Ontario and Quebec,” he said.
Looking to the future
Donaldson said Golf Canada has re-instituted a policy to grant money for programs that apply in order to help them grow.
He said the Ravens hope to apply for it next year in order to boost the team’s funding, and he said his goal is to have an entire team representing the Carleton men at nationals by 2016.
For the Ravens women now departing, Boyko said she is pleased with the legacy she and her teammates and coaches left now that most of them, including her, will move on next year.
But she said this nationals appearance shows the growth of the women’s and men’s golf teams since the beginning of her journey at Carleton, and she said Ravens golf in general is on the rise.
“It just shows how golf is a growing sport and hopefully it continues,” she said.
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