Women’s Golf: Glennie leads Drake in 2015

The women’s golf team ended their season on a positive note with a first place win at the Creighton Classic on Oct. 20. Sophomore Madison Glennie led the Bulldogs as they clinched first place at the tournament in a field of eight.

“Getting that team win and having not necessarily played our best over the course of the whole tournament kind of just lit that fire under them,” head coach Rachael Pruett said. “Yeah, we won, but next time we want to go out and win Illinois State’s tournament and we just want to take it up to the next level.”

Glennie’s performance led to her being named the Missouri Valley Conference Women’s Golfer of the Week. The Creighton Classic was her first individual collegiate win and the first individual win for Drake since 2010.

“It’s cool to be recognized by the whole conference,” Glennie said, “not only to win a tournament but to be deemed one of the best players that week. It’s something I’m always going to try to strive for, to get that honor again, and to just keep playing well and live up to what I set for myself.”

Pruett, in her first year as head coach, had a young team with Glennie and three first-year golfers. Instead of focusing on the scorecard, Pruett encouraged her players to acknowledge the areas for growth and focus on the things that went well. Pruett’s goal was to cultivate positivity on an individual and a team level.

“Usually, if your mindset is better, you play better,” Glennie said. “If you focus just on the score, typically that’s when you fall apart and you’re focused on an extrinsic thing.”

The Bulldogs needed positive groundwork to rely on at the start of the season.

“(With Pruett) everything is about improvement and not looking back negatively but using everything as a point to grow from,” Glennie said. “I really liked that because I think it’s really helpful to have that specific goal you can rely on when things get tough.”

In September, the women finished 11th of 16 teams at the Illinois State University’s Redbird Invitational. They improved at the South Dakota Coyote Classic to tie for fourth with North Dakota University. Drake’s Sophia Hill tied for second overall and Glennie finished fourth.

The women would return to finishing in the bottom half of the field at the Bob Hurley Shootout and the Missouri State University tournament. Glennie led the Bulldogs in two of the three remaining tournaments, including her first place finish at Creighton.

“My focus this season was just to be positive and have fun because I’m an overachiever and a perfectionist,” Glennie said. “So it was just editing that mindset so I could play and, when I do have a rough day, being able to come back at it as a challenge instead of something that hinders me.”

The team practiced in the week after Creighton to experience weather similar to what it will be like in the spring. The Creighton victory is still fresh in their minds, which should give them momentum come springtime.