Championship month nearing for Griz golfers

The Montana women's golf team will open the month of April when the Grizzlies compete at the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic next week at the Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Ariz.

The tournament will open with 36 holes on Monday, conclude with 18 holes on Tuesday.

Montana will return to Arizona later in the week for the Bobcat Spring Invitational, which will be played at the Golf Club of Estrella in Goodyear.

That tournament will be a three-day event, with 18 holes on Sunday, April 9; Monday, April 10; and Tuesday, April 11.

Those events will lead up to the Big Sky Conference Championship, which will be held at the Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale from Monday, April 17, to Wednesday, April 19.

Montana will compete at the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic next week with the same lineup it used at its first two spring tournaments: seniors Tricia Joyce and Jessica Ponce, junior Madison Cecil, sophomore Kylie Franklin and freshman Raina Ports.

They will play in a tournament that Montana has competed in every year – at least years that have included both a full fall and spring lineup of events – since 2005-06.

It is traditionally both the largest field and some of the toughest conditions Montana will play in during the spring. Last year's event included 22 teams, four of which shot three sub-300 rounds.

"Tough field, tough course," said coach Kris Nord. "It's probably the toughest course we'll see. It's usually windy, it has length and it has fairways and greens that are really bunkered. You have to position the ball well or the bunkers will eat you up. They are true hazards if you get into them.

"The biggest key is staying out of them. If you have to get the ball up and down, it's hard. Between that and the wind, those are the two biggies we face at Maricopa."

At the spring opener, the Lady Thunderbird Invitational in St. George, Utah, Joyce (77-72-76) led Montana and finished 21st overall. Nobody else broke into the top 60 in the 95-player field.

At the Red Rocks Invitational, Ports (82-79-72) got better and better as the tournament wore on and tied for 66th in a 104-player field.

The Grizzlies had six rounds in the low 80s at Red Rocks, four at St. George, scores which kept Montana from being higher up the leaderboard.

"I sound like a broken record, but we have to get rid of two or three train-wreck holes across the board, from our top golfer to our fifth golfer," said Nord. "We aren't managing the damage very well.

"We thought putting would be more of the issue (without having easy access to courses in Montana), but our putting has been okay. It's just managing the big holes. Before we take the next step with the other stuff, that has to stop or we're going to be stuck in the bottom of the field."

Montana (311-310-313) tied for 13th out of 16 teams at the Lady Thunderbird Invitational. At Red Rocks, the Grizzlies (320-314-303) finished 19th out of 20 teams.

Montana's final-round 303 in Sedona was its best since shooting a 298 in its final round of the Eagle Invitational in Spokane in September.

"We get rid of half of our big numbers and we're in the middle of the field or the upper third instead of the bottom third," said Nord.

"We haven't liked where we've finished. There are other teams that we should be in the mix with and we're not right now, so that's frustrating."

Montana will play at the Golf Club of Estrella in Goodyear for the third straight year heading into the Big Sky Championship.

The Grizzlies (311-303-303) finished fourth out of 11 teams at Montana State's tournament last spring.

The five golfers who will be competing next week have competed in all six of Montana's events this year, four in the fall, two this spring.

Ports has a stroke average of 77.39, which would be the best for a Griz freshman across a full season since Barbora Bakova (76.7) in 2013-14.

Cecil is at 78.06, Joyce at 78.78, Franklin at 79.11 and Ponce at 79.56.

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Players Mentioned

Madison Cecil

Kylie Franklin

Tricia Joyce

Jessica Ponce

Raina Ports

University of Montana Athletics