Written by Genre McAtee '16
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The Santa Clara men's golf team, including Thousand Oaks, Calif. native Drew Miller (DM), just finished its 2014-15 season in Somis, Calif. Miller confessed to the toughness of the West Coast Conference Championship, but he was not deterred and is motivated to come back stronger than ever next year. Santa Clara Broncos (SCB) admires Miller's determination and heart. Congratulations to the Santa Clara men's golf team on the end of their season! Go Broncos!
SCB: What were some aspects of the Saticoy Country Club course that made it such a challenging place to play?
DM: Saticoy is one of the most difficult courses in California, if not the world. When they have tournaments there, they have the ability to make the course tremendously difficult. The main difficulty is that the course is located on the side of a hill, making the greens devilishly sloped. When the greens are fast (and boy were they fast!) there are only a few square feet of grass where it is possible to put a pin on each green without having a stand still ball picking up speed due to the severity of slope and rolling off the front of the green! One of our competitors within the conference, Pacific's Byron Meth, played in the Masters Golf Tournament a few weeks ago and I overheard that he said Saticoy's greens were just as difficult as the notoriously challenging greens at Augusta National, if not more so. I heard some guys from other teams gripe about how difficult and unfair it was, but I loved the challenging setup; it placed a premium on precision and commitment and truly tested who was mentally fit and who was playing their best golf at the end of the week.
SCB: How did your local connection, being a Thousand Oaks native, help in preparation for the championships? What did you tell your teammates about the course?
DM: There is a lot of local knowledge around Saticoy and I tried to give the guys some tips when they asked. Golf is a very personalized game so I didn't force anything upon them but was a sounding board when they had an issue or concern. I had qualified for the U.S. Am there in 2013 shooting 72-71 so I was hoping for more of the same during conference, I just couldn't get it going.
SCB: You shot a second-round 75, which tied for the lowest individual score for a single round among your teammates. What saved you some strokes on Day 2?
DM: The second round I just managed my game more carefully and saw some more putts go in. That's all it comes down to: getting the ball in the hole around the greens.
SCB: What did you take away from your experience in Somis?
DM: It was definitely a disappointing way to finish our year, we felt like we were easily one of the best teams in conference. It was a difficult spring season: we had seven tournaments in eight weeks with finals thrown in the middle, so I think we might have just run out of gas a bit. Although the course was playing tough, we know we are better than our scores indicated. We will use the result as motivation to get that much better this offseason and come back next year firing on all cylinders.
SCB: The WCC Championship signals the end of the 2014-15 season. In what ways has this season made an impact on you?
DM: It has just further proven to me the importance of balancing school and sport. A key for us this year and next year will be to continue to learn how to maintain that fine line, so we can be mentally and physically prepared for each event. I know if we can do that and continue to work hard, things will be different next year!
