FEATURE – A Season For Change, Texas Men’s Golf

Awards and Photographs line the walls of the University of Texas Golf Club, highlighting the Longhorns’ successes on the fairways. The impressive display tells the story of a program that, over the years, produced numerous conference titles and All-American players who excelled at the college and professional levels.Yet despite all the hardware and accolades, the national championship trophies are scarce or nonexistent. The Texas men’s golf team won their last title 40 years ago, in 1972 when Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite shared individual medalist honors. The Longhorns produced their last individual champion — Justin Leonard — in 1994.

The women’s team has yet to find their way to the top of the NCAA heap at season’s end, even with the likes of two-time LPGA major championship winner…[s2If current_user_is(s2member_level2)]Sherri Steinhauer and two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur winner Kelli Kuehne as anchors.

Coming into the 2012 season, however, the performances from both teams may call for more room in the trophy cases. The Golfweek/Sagarin rankings placed the men’s and women’s teams in the No. 1 position this season, with the men’s team — led by top-ranked Jordan Spieth and second-ranked Dylan Frittelli — maintaining the top spot since August.

“We’re focused on winning the national championship and working to make that happen,” redshirt junior Julio Vegas says.

Beginning in September and through April, the men won seven tournaments this year, including four in a row. After finishing sixth in back-to-back tournaments in Puerto Rico and Las Vegas, Texas captured its own annual event — the Morris Williams Invitational —in March and then went on to beat two-time defending national champions Augusta State via a two-hole playoff at the Augusta State Invitational.

“We want to win every tournament we’re in,” men’s coach John Fields — who’s in his 15^th year on the 40 Acres — says. “We bring a team that can win every time we tee up. Our goal is winning the national championship — that’s the carrot we’re chasing.” “I believe in my team and finishing sixth twice doesn’t change my mind,” he adds. “In golf you’re going to have difficult events and times when things don’t roll your way. It would be nice to win every golf tournament but that’s not reality.”

Texas’ 13-player men’s team features golfers from Finland (sophomore Toni Hakula), Venezuela (Vegas, who’s the younger brother of former Longhorn and PGA Tour winner Jhonatton Vegas) and South Africa (Frittelli), in addition to 10 players from the Lone Star state.

“There’s constant competition within this team to be the best, and because the talent level is so high, the competitive spirit pushes us to improve,” Fields explains. “Putting this team together took a long time. We assembled this team the way we would a business.”

Frittelli, the co-2010 Big 12 player of the year, agreed with Fields that the competition is intense among the team — especially since just five players earn spots to play in each tournament.

“If we keep winning, it’s going to be a great ride,” Frittelli says. “The rankings are what they are and make us a target for the other teams. We have to keep improving and stay hungry. We need to continue to learn. We’re setting our sights high, but other teams are working hard too.”

The men’s team isn’t the only one setting their sights high.

Last May, the Texas women’s team won its first Big 12 team tournament title since 2004 and held the top spot in the college rankings after beginning the season with two wins in its first four tournaments — the Texas A&M-hosted “Mo” Morial Invitational in September and the Longhorns’ own tournament, the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational, in November.

The victory in November marked the first time since 1999 that the women captured their own tourney. “Our team is a confident bunch,” coach Martha Richards says. “We’ve done a lot of great work over the years. We can trust that work, and when you trust your work and play well, confidence is a by-product of good performance.”

Madison Pressel became the second individual champion in school history with a Big 12 Championship record-setting score of 8-under-par 208 last season. She later earned the 2011 Big 12’s Women’s Golfer of the Year title after finishing as the highest-ranked individual in the conference. Pressel is the younger sister of the LPGA’s Morgan Pressel, the youngest-ever winner of a modern LPGA major championship. Unfortunately the junior injured her right shoulder prior to the Big 12 Tournament, keeping her out for the remainder of the season.

Joining Pressel on the course and bringing an international flavor to the team is senior stalwart Nicole Vandermade of Canada and freshman Bertine Strauss of South Africa. The remaining five players hail from all over the nation, including South Carolina, Texas and California.

Coming into the spring, the team cooled a bit, dropping to 28^th in the nation after finishing seventh out of 17 teams in the PING ASU Invitational April 1. Despite their drop in the rankings, Richards remains positive.  The fifth-year coach believes the team is close to where they should be as they approach the most important time of year — the Big 12 tournament, the NCAA Regionals and, ultimately, the NCAA Championships.

“We continue to improve and we’re coming into the end of the year playing well,” she says. “We’re capable of having a strong finish, and if we get hot, who knows what can happen. We haven’t played as well as we could have, but that doesn’t mean we can’t turn things up.”

“I came here to build this program,” Pressel adds. “We’ve worked well together to make the dream happen.”

The men’s and women’s teams share an immense amount of respect for one another. They share the same practice facility and often work side-by-side on the range, the multiple putting greens and at the short-game areas.

“We hope that some of the momentum from the men’s team rubs off on us,” Richards says. “Our girls get along great with the men’s team — they’re a super group of young men. I love watching our girls compete with the men out at the short-game area because there’s a great synergy between the two squads. They push our girls to be their best.”[/s2If]
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