Penn State will announce Denise St. Pierre’s retirement today after 31 years at the helm of the women’s golf team. On Sunday, in a bit of incredible timing, St. Pierre managed to slip one final, monumental line onto her career resume: that of national champion.
Penn State won the first National Golf Invitational in history on May 14 by holding off a charge from Iowa over the closing stretch at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. St. Pierre, 61, gave a masterclass in knowing your players – one that arguably began in August.
St. Pierre didn’t want her team to hear from outside voices that this would be her final year coaching, so she decided to tell them herself. She punctuated the announcement with a clear request not to dwell on her farewell season. There would be no celebrating coach’s last this and final that.
It’s possible, St. Pierre said, that her retirement motivated her team at the NGI, but more probable, in her mind, is that they had their own goals to accomplish. Penn State finished a disappointing 12th at the Big 10 Conference Championship and narrowly missed making regionals as a team (qualifying Mathilde Delavallade, however, as an individual).
St. Pierre also kept the creation of the NGI to herself until the season had played out, wanting her players to be striving for what they had always been striving for since the beginning: an NCAA berth.
But having the NGI to extend their season? “I can’t tell you what it means,” St. Pierre said, “especially to my players who are leaving.”
St. Pierre is an early riser and a morning planner on tournament days, and she did it one last time before Sunday’s final round. Penn State had a five-shot lead on Santa Clara with 18 holes to play.
“I always reflect on, what do they need at this point in time?” St. Pierre said. “Something that just kept repeating over and over in my head was, ‘Nothing different, Denise.’”
As Iowa, who had started the day in third, made a charge midway through the round, closing the gap to two shots late in the back nine, St. Pierre again made a conscious effort to be who she has been all season with her players and not to change tactics with the heightened stakes. St. Pierre admits to feeling her insides churning at times.
When Drew Nienhaus drove it in the bunker on the par-5 16th then successfully got out and hit her approach to 6 feet for birdie, the gap widened a little more in Penn State’s favor. After that, Isha Dhruva stuck her…
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