On Wednesday September 28th we departed for Virginia Beach to participate in the Evie Odom Invitational hosted by Old Dominion University. At 10 a.m. that morning I received a text from the host coach indicating a “change” in the schedule of play due to Hurricane Ian that was making its way up the coast. Thursday was to be our practice round day, as is the norm for most tournaments.
We were told that our first competitive round was to begin Thursday at 1:30 p.m. and if we wanted to see or play the course, we could do that Wednesday afternoon or Thursday from 10 a.m. to Noon only. Both options were not ideal when we cannot leave campus until our classes are done, which is typically 3 p.m. most afternoons. With only two hours in the morning, it was hardly enough time to see each hole let alone play the holes. We pulled in to Virginia Beach at around 11 p.m. and rose the next day to race through the course, take our notes and determine our “game plan”. Fortunately, some of the players had been to this tournament last season and were able to formulate a reasonable attack of the opponent, the Princess Anne Country Club. However, none of us could have predicted what would happen halfway through our round.
What seemed like a fairly reasonable windy day of 20 mph winds suddenly turned into something more out of the Wizard of Oz, as winds kicked up 30 to 40 mph and gusts of 50! Yikes. I must have looked like a sight to my players with my hoodie up and tied around my chin just to keep my hat on! The sand blowing out of the bunkers felt like small needles hitting your face. Standing next to a player to help them with a club selection it was difficult to hear or understand what we were saying to one another. I kept wondering when this tournament would be called for lack of playability and fairness to the players. It finally happened, but not after four of our players went through this dreadful hole and our team dropped from out of third position to ninth! Luck of the draw to where we started the day in the shotgun event.
The hole was playing so difficult at one point we had our entire team on the same tee box because of how much time it took to get a group through the hole. We came in with 3-4 holes left to play while some of the field had completed their round based on where they started. There was talk of the round getting…
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