College Athlete of the Week

Published 2:11 pm Thursday, March 24, 2011

School: Western Washington University

Class: Senior

Sport: Golf

Hometown: Mukilteo (Kamiak High School)

What she did: Placed fifth individually while leading the Vikings to a second-place team finish at the Chico State Invitational earlier this week. Goldie shot a 76 in the first round, which matched the best score of the day.

What’s next: WWU is on spring break. The golf team returns to competition April 4-5 at the Grand Canyon Invitational in Arizona.

THE TWO-MINUTE DRILL

For starters, you’re on spring break. So what does a varsity golfer do for fun with her free time?
Well, that’s an excellent question. I guess I’m kind of unique because for me, fun is reading a new book and hanging out with friends. I guess I’m different than your typical varsity athlete. I know that might sound so lame, but that’s what I like to do.

Not at all. Is there a new book you’ve picked out?
Yeah, actually. I just started “Exile and the Kingdom” by Albert Camus.

One from the old days. You’re not into light reading, huh?
No, not really. I like the classics.

So are you going to get any golf in with your free time?
Hopefully. All golfers who are on a golf team like playing. So, yeah. I like playing with the guys from the men’s team, and I mostly like playing with my family if I’m able to because those are the people I started with — especially my dad.

Any plans to play with him this week?
This weekend, I’m going down to Mukilteo, and I hope to play with my dad, but I haven’t asked him yet.

As a varsity golfer, do you ever get tired of playing?
I haven’t gotten burned out yet, but I’m sure by mid-May I’ll be almost burnt out. We have such a blitz of tournaments coming that I’ll definitely want to have a break. I’ll be spending more time out of state than I will in state, so that’ll be hard. School’s been pretty stressful, and graduation is in June, so I’ve got to pace myself.

Well, this week has had perfect weather to be on the course.
Yeah, I guess. It’s better than Chico.

Oh, it was bad down there earlier this week?
Thunderstorms. It was absolutely awful. The golf course was basically flooded. We had to be pulled off the course halfway through our first round. On one hole, I hit an approach shot toward the green, and it stopped in a large pool of water — probably 20 feet in diameter. The coach of Grand Canyon’s team came out, and we started getting water off the greens. We had to flip the rakes over and use the flat side. So that was interesting. But it was the same for everyone. I guess we had a little advantage, being from Bellingham, because we’re used to soggy weather.

In that tournament, the Chico State Invitational, you helped the Vikings to a second-place finish while finishing fifth individually. After one round, you were tied for medalist honors. So what was working for you?
With that course, you had to place the ball on every single shot — on every drive, on every approach, every putt. Everything had to be going well, or the course would eat you alive. I had everything going for me that day. Unfortunately, the second day I had a harder time putting, and that’s where a lot of my strokes came from.

After shooting a 76 in the first round, you had an 83. Was it just putting, or what was going on?
It was 75 percent putting. The other 25 percent was bad luck. I usually don’t attribute my bad rounds to bad luck, but there were three times when I had to hit a ball left-handed because of its placement — behind a tree or wherever. I’ve probably had to do that one other time, and I had to do it three times in one round.

So what kind of a left-handed golfer are you?
Actually, on one of the shots, I shocked myself with how well I hit it. The others, it didn’t go so well. You have to turn the club upside down and flat, so it’s not the way a normal left-hander would hit it.

One of the top players on the Western men’s team, Dylan Goodwin, is also from Kamiak High School. So is Mukilteo some sort of a breeding ground for golfers?
It totally is. I’m not sure why, but it must have something to do with Harbour Pointe because it always supported the juniors. When I was in high school, four of the top five girls went on to play in college. One went to Harvard or Yale — I can’t remember — one went to UW, one went to Idaho and I went to Western. It felt like a college team. It wasn’t a normal team.

Western has finished in second place or higher in every tournament this season. Is that about what you expected from this year’s Vikings?
I was actually expecting better because the team is phenomenal, just in the way we interact at practice. We feed off each other and have a better dynamic than we’ve ever had. So I was expecting more first-place finishes, actually. I’m not that disappointed by the second places, but I expected more firsts.

And you’ve had a good year individually. So is a national title one of your goals?
I’m hoping the team will win nationals. Yeah, I guess I have a lot of expectations for myself because it’s my last year here, and I want to go out with a bang. But I’m thinking more of trying to finish in the top-10 at regionals, and then if I can accomplish that, maybe top-10 at nationals.

So you’re a senior then. What’s next for you?
I graduate in June, then I’ll take some time off to take extra classes, maybe travel to Europe — I’m thinking Northern Africa. Then I’ll come back and apply for nursing school.

Why Northern Africa?
I have a minor in French, and I always wondered why. It’s useless for my field. And in Morocco they speak French and Arabic, so I’d be interested to go there and see how I could handle the language. Plus, I’ve traveled a lot because my dad’s a pilot, but I’ve never been to Africa, so that would be cool.

Your dad’s a pilot? For who?
He was a pilot for Air Canada, but he retired a year ago. And my brother’s a pilot, too.

So where all have you been?
Japan, Hong Kong, Western Europe, Eastern Europe. All over the U.S. That’s about it. Oh, and we took a yearly trip to Scotland.

So did you ever get a chance to play St. Andrews in Scotland?
I have definitely had the privilege, and it kicked my butt. It was a long time ago, and it was too depressing to keep score. It’s definitely very, very difficult because it’s windy all the time. If you don’t keep the ball on the fairway, you’ll never find it.

Did you lose a lot of balls?
I brought a lot, yes. And Scottish people really like to play fast. They don’t have patience for people looking for balls.

So what’s worse: the weather at St. Andrews, or the weather in Chico earlier this week?
Um, I don’t know. They’re both bad. I would say St. Andrews … but I don’t know. They were both horrible. St. Andrews is gusting all the time; it’s freezing cold, even in June, July and August. And Chico is kind of bipolar. There was this beautiful sunshine, and then there were these huge drops of water and these ominous black clouds. It made for really bad conditions.

At least in Chico, you don’t have any Scottish people breathing down your neck, though.
No, no, no. Everyone takes their time out there, that’s for sure.