Feb. 22, 2007

Golf is for Old Farts
Monday, April 2, 2006, 9:10 p.m.

I'd like to start off this spring quarter with a huge SADFACE as we say goodbye to one of the best spring breaks EVER.  No, I didn't travel anywhere spectacular...but words cannot express how phenomenal it was spending 13 zero-stress days golfing, sleeping in, eating amazing food, gallivanting around with long lost friends, and carelessly spending my way through my savings account. 

Adding to the sheer bliss of spring break was our team's first win since... a very long time ago.  The fact that we beat 2 teams ranked MUCH higher than us (USF and Harvard) made the victory even sweeter.  While the rest of the field fell apart in 50 MPH Gail-forced winds in the heart of the valley (Cordevalle GC), we Broncos welcomed the challenge, stayed strong and VERY patient to finish out with a team score of 321.  We were lead by our break-out player of the year, Jamie Nonaka, who shot a stellar 77 and took home the individual title.  Shout out to the men's crew team, who came out in their festive crew polos and cargo shorts to cheer us on to victory.  Thanks for your support guys.  We love you.

In the spirit of Easter, Erin Sullivan and I took a break from shopping to take a picture with the Easter Bunny, shown here. He clearly had a bit of a crush on Sulli...which is fine, I'm not jealous. 

On a somewhat irritating note:  I went to the trainer a few weeks ago because of ongoing discomfort in my left wrist to learn that I have tendonitis.  BOO.  That said we've come to realize that golf isn't the only post-retirement activity our team partakes in.

Top 10 ways you know you need to embrace the college experience a little more because you're aging too quickly:

10. You go insane when anything sung by Marvin Gaye, George Strait, Lynard Skynard, The 4 Tops, Martha Reeves, or the Commodores comes on the radio. 
9. You enjoy a diet high in fiber and dried fruit, low in sugar, and if you're Jenny Nelson, opt to salt the heck out of everything that comes your way.   
8.  You know how to properly use a thera-cane to help cure all those nuisance aches and pains.   
7.  Going to sleep after 10:00 PM is not an option and your body automatically wakes you up at 5:30 AM.
6.  You wear a muumuu to bed 4 nights a week.
5.  Your overnight case contains pain-relievers, Tylenol PM, Viactiv, and glucosamine chondroitin for joints and osteoporosis.
4.  Your favorite pastimes other than golf (ahem, Megan Stoddart) are:  knitting, crosswords,     Sudoku, water colors, playing bocce ball, and completing jigsaw puzzles.
3.   Lower-back problems and/or sheer laziness prevent you from carrying your golf bag, so you use a push cart named Sven, Günter, Hans, or Ned instead.
2.   You play golf at The Villages retirement community every Friday afternoon. 
1.   You watch, but sometimes don't make it all the way through, an entire round of Jeopardy without falling asleep. 

On that note, I've gotta go watch Apollo Ohno shake his hot tush on Dancing with the Stars! SWOON!  

Goodnight, Bronco fans!  I look forward to seeing all of your smiling faces out at Stanford University's golf course on Friday and Saturday at the end of this week, cheering us on to another solid finish! 

<3 <3 <3, corey

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Golf tans in MARCH?!?
Sunday, March 10, 2006, 8:33 p.m.

Greetings, golf fans!  My most sincere apologies to all of you die-hard bronco blog subscribers for the weeklong hiatus.  I hope you can forgive me, as this past week has been pretty intense! 

We started the week off with our first 54-hole event of the season--San Jose State's tournament at Almaden CC.  Although we didn't exactly play as well as we would have liked, I think I speak for us all when I say that there were a great number of lessons learned from the experience!  I, for one, learned that getting a massage in between rounds doesn't make your swing more fluent--it makes your body more tired.  Noni learned that sometimes, visualizations just don't turn out the way we want them to.  She's still waiting for her million-dollar checks in the mail.  Freshie Erin Sullivan (who shot her first sub-80 round in an NCAA Division 1 Golf Event during the 3rd round of the tourney--YAY) learned that when a waitress says the restaurant's signature dish is the DEEP DISH PIZZA, you do not go against her recommendations and order the "FRESH" HALIBUT TACOS. 

We were lucky enough to get some "member advice" during our practice round, and Mr. Um-num provided us all with a reasonable excuse for why some of our putts just didn't drop.  That is, unless your name is Sam Trask and you didn't need any excuses because you were able to get up and down 11 times en route to a solid final round score of 77! 

Thank you to all of the amazing fans that came out to watch us golf our way around the course.  Our swing and short game coach, Mr. B. Frank Johnson made an appearance with his lovely wife, and was sporting a fabulous orange Titleist visor to keep the penetrating San Jose sun out of his eyes.  A special thanks to Professor Kahl, our favorite Management 160 professor, for cheering us on all day long!  Since this is my blog, I'm also going to give a huge shout out to my grandparents who came out to cheer us on, as well.  Thanks, grandma and grandpa! 

The aftermath of the tournament consisted of make-up midterms, quizzes, papers, and group meetings for us all.  I, for one, spent a day in the city at a job interview and realized that I never want to work.  As this chaotic week comes to an end, one would think that we bronco golfers deserve a few days of rest.  YEA, RIGHT!  We have a few weeks "off" to "study" for finals before our next event.  With finals-week looming around the corner, work continues to build up, and my innate ability to procrastinate until I drive myself half-insane is in first gear.  What better excuse to not study than the opportunity to work on your golf tan while the PERFECT skirt-and-polo weather sets in around the South bay?  On that note, while the rest of Santa Clara University coops up in the library for the next two weeks, you can ponder about what the women's golf team might be doing...

...Studying right along with them, duh!  How else are we going to take down the Women's Cross Country Team for the athletics GPA title?  Since it's dark out, I better make good use of my time and crack the books.  Until next time, stay classy, golf fans, and as always...GO BRONCOS! 

<3 <3 <3, Corey

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Fres-NO? Fres-YES!
Thursday, March 1, 2006, 1:40 p.m.

Left to right: Megan Stoddart, Samantha Trask, Jennifer Sun, Corey Utsurogi, Jamie Nonaka

Hóla golf fans!  I am happy to report some great things from the valley!  Our traveling squad returned from the Fresno State tournament Tuesday night after two solid rounds of golf at Copper River CC.  Bottom line: we finished tied for 11th out of 17 teams...which may not sound that incredible, but we were ranked last out of all the teams there.  That said, we basically beat 6 teams that are ranked better than us, which is going to improve our rankings!  YAY US!  For a full recap of golf events, check out the stories (and sizzling hot pictures of Megan Stoddart and myself) on the women's golf website! 

We totally lucked out with the weather...I heard that it was raining cats and dogs in the bay area over the weekend and that's a real shame because our forecast was absolute perfection.  A few clouds, just a sparse amount of precipitation, some wind, and lots of sunshine helped us all play pretty gosh darn well, if I do say so myself.  It would have been even better if it weren't for the occasional whiff of garlic/onions/Stoddart's feet brought on by the central valley winds...haha kidding.  Fresno was fabulous regardless of its musk, and here are a few noteworthy happenings from the weekend:

• We all got an informative geography lesson during our practice round when the clouds parted, snow-capped mountains became visible off in the distance, and our nature critic, Jennifer Sun, asked, "Is that Lake Tahoe?"  
• While playing M*A*S*H on the table at Macaroni Grill... "It's okay.  Maybe you're just too stupid to know you're sad." 
• Samantha Trask reached a milestone in her life: Tuesday was her 22nd Birthday!  In honor of this, she promptly drew a balloon on her Titleist 22 golf ball and showed it to me.  My response?  "What is that...a toilet-bowl cleaner?" 
• Back on the homefront, Jenny Nelson turned 21 on Sunday and with her on my mind all weekend, I finished in 21st place individually in the tournament. 
• God knows our inability to pack light for any occasion, but we found a way to fit 5 sets of golf clubs, 6 suitcases, 6 backpacks, 6 umbrellas, 5 handbags, snackies, a case of water, 5 golfers, and Coach P into a hot, black 2007 Suburban. 
• Coach P's dad, Dr. Bob, blessed us all with great words of wisdom:  "REFUSE TO LOSE!"

On behalf of the team, thanks SO MUCH to all of our die-hard Bronco supporters that made the drive down to Fresno to cheer us on! 

ATTENTION ALL BRONCO LOVERS: For those of you that will be in the area next Monday and Tuesday (March 5-6), we play in a VERY local tournament--San Jose State's tournament at Almaden Country Club, located in San Jose.  We play 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday and would love any and all BRONCO FANS to come out and support us! 

Have an amazing weekend...and as always, GO BRONCOS!

<3 <3 <3, Corey

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No More Black Shadow
Wednesday, February 21, 2006, 10:46 p.m.

Hello everyone!  My name is Corey Utsurogi and I'm a junior on the women's golf team.  So it looks like I've gotten a bit of a late start on this blog ... I guess it's about time the black shadow-like figure representing the women's golf team is replaced with me!  I've never really written a blog before so I apologize in advance if my random ramblings bore you.  Lack of creativity aside, I'm pretty excited to let you all in on the crazy life we student-golfers live every day.  I'll try my best to give you the inside dish of our team. 

First let me update you on the beginning part of our season:

After what seemed like weeks and weeks of practice, we finally started the season off with a solid 3rd place finish out of 17 teams in the UC Riverside tournament last week (February 12th-13th).  This was a great feat for our team as we began our final round in a tie for 10th place, behind our conference rivals Gonzaga and Portland.  We grinded our way back towards the top half of the leader board during the final round, though and were led by our senior co-captain, Sam Trask who shot a stellar 75.  Awesome job, Sammy!  Three other Broncos earned Top-20 finishes out of the field of 90--freshie Jamie Nonaka (T-18), Junior Jenn Sun (T-16th), and myself (T-14). 

I could bore you with more golf stats, but instead I'll give you a few key highlights about my crazy teammates:

Jenn Sun--"Sunny" is also one of my roommates and is craaaazy about Benson breakfast sandwiches.  How that tiny body of hers can nail the golf ball as far as she does is a mystery to us all--but we love it.  Although she's a Com major, Sunny has an obsession with natural habitations and can often be found in random state parks searching for red-winged black birds, beavers, naked mole rats, wombats, and other creatures prevalent in the Northern California Hills. 
Megan Stoddart--"Stoudemire" is basically an all around stud.  She transferred to SCU last year as a Junior from Hawaii (island fever got to her and she couldn't stand the year-round amazing golf weather, surfer boys, snow cones, and beaches).  When she's not putting from 40 yards off the green, you can find her at Boot Barn obsessing over leather chaps, all things Timmy Mac, and hunting gear to shoot things. 
Sam Trask--You'd be surprised to know that on top of consistently hitting every single fairway and getting up and down 97.4% of the time, Sam is also a brilliant finance tutor (she has the ability to help even those with the lowest IQ--ahem, yours truly), and an awesome dancer!  Downtown San Jose on a Friday night with Sam Trask is like a DDR marathon--the girl can shake it! 
Hilaire Fouts--FERGALICIOUS...or should we say...haha kidding.  Although she has a difficult time forking over $2.50 for a Subway sandwich, Hils is notoriously known for tipping waitresses over 50% of the tab...for BAD service!  General arithmetic skills aside, Hilaire puts up low numbers where it counts most--on the golf card! 
Erin Sullivan--The new poster-girl for SCU Women's Golf.  Who wouldn't want to be this freshie?  She's living the California dream while the rest of her family is stuck in the midwest (Chicago) dealing with snowstorms and freezing temps.  Boys love her, girls want to be her, and to top it all of, the girl is a real gem to spend 5 ½ hours on the golf course with. 
Jamie Nonaka--formerly "Speck", currently "Noni".  This new addition to the team has come up HUGE for us in clutch situations.  We had the luxury of being the first to witness Noni, a native Hawaiian, play her first round of golf in...GASP..long pants! 
Ella Sanman--She's officially nocturnal.  Juggling school, golf, and handling information at the Benson Desk, this girl takes multi-tasking to another level.  Where she finds time to hang out and relax, I'll never know, but when she does have a spare minute, she thoroughly enjoys riding the fluff cycle in oversized dryers in Livermore. 
Jenny Nelson-- my roommate and fellow lover of all things CHOCOLATE!  Jenny's a Junior accounting major that plans to spend the rest of her life after golf in a Dolce & Gabana suit, tackling the world 1 balance sheet at a time. 

Side note:  Jenny had a near bout with death last week--she suffered a major bug bite on her left leg that kept her out of the lineup for the first tourney.  We've been keeping an eye on it, and although it was touch and go for a while, we're pretty sure she's going to have a full recovery and will be back out there, bombing the ball 300 yards off the tee in no time. 

Sorry for the lengthiness of the blog--but how glad are you that you know something new about the women's golf team members?  We leave for Fresno's tournament this Saturday so get ready for a recap on our GREAT SUCCESS down in the armpit of the state next week! 

Alright, I've got workouts in about...7 hours so I better hit the hay.  Hasta for now! 

<3 <3 <3, Corey

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