Oklahoma City University’s men and women’s golf teams are excitedly looking forward to quite literally getting back into the ‘swing’ of things as their spring season quickly approaches.
Both teams will see their invitational tournament play tee off towards the end of February–with the men participating Feb 18-20 in the TPC-San Antonio Invitational, while the women take to the course on Feb 26-27 as part of The Trailblazer at the TPC-Summerlin course in Las Vegas, Nevada.
At the helm of the women’s team, entering his second season, is head coach Josh Gorzney. Leading the men’s squad is Blake Trimble, who is entering his first year as head coach.
During the fall season, the women’s team had finishes of 1st, 5th, 6th, 13th, and 7th in invitational play while the men’s team finished 6th, 2nd, 9th, and 11th in their four tournaments played.
Between the men’s and women’s teams, the Stars have won nearly twenty NAIA National Championships, the most recent being in 2018 won by the men’s team.
Speaking to The Campus recently, Trimble talked about his goals for the team in 2024.
The bar has been set extremely high and the goal when coming to Oklahoma City University is to win national championships, and with 13 years under his belt playing golf professionally, Trimble believes that he has experience as well as knowledge of the game to offer to the team.
“Right now,” said Trimble, “(we are) just trying to get the rust off…after Christmas break and everything you know, these guys are just a little bit rusty.”
Following a trip to Texas which included some practice and play, Trimble said that with some qualifiers on the roster, the team was returning to form.
The golf course that is hosting the men’s team for their first invitational play also hosts a Professional Golf Association (PGA) tournament, therefore it is a challenging and tricky course but will serve as a good test for the team while they match up against some great teams.
When asked to label their biggest challenge as the team moves into the start of their season, coach Trimble stated, “It will be tough when it comes to picking teams, we have 9 guys who all could jump into the top 5. So that will be a little bit tougher but if the guys keep working hard and putting in the effort…that will make my decision a little bit easier.”
Returning women’s golf head coach Josh Gorzney recently sat down with The Campus and provided insight on how his team is currently preparing for their season to commence.
The team is utilizing data with Decade, a golf course software program that the ladies can use for stats which inputs round by round tournament qualifying metrics that gives the team indicators of what needs to be worked on.
Gorzney explained, “By looking at last fall, we need to get better at inside of 125 yards, out of the sand, and inside of 30 yards. We really rely on data, and it helps me create practice plans for the winter off-season as we move into the spring season.”
In preparation for the spring season, the team is practicing and playing. The coach and team are combining the two preparation methods 50-50 while learning how to score higher on a course and still working on specific skills. The team also utilizes distance and putting combines where the players are given a random distance that they must hit spot on to improve distance control.
“In the fall, our schedule was tougher on paper because we played Division I tournaments against Top-100 teams. We were learning how to struggle while playing tougher golf courses where your mistakes show up on the scorecard more.”
When talking about the upcoming spring schedule, Gorzney expressed, “Our schedule is a little easier, so we are leaning into confidence building all the way into conference and into nationals.”
The women’s team is hosting two tournaments in Oklahoma City this season. One is the Kyle Blaser Invitational at The Greens Country Club in March and the other is the Susie Maxwell Berning Classic at Lincoln Park Golf Course in April against more regionally based teams.
The men’s roster is composed of graduate student Carson Breckenridge, senior Ben Thionnet, juniors, Michael Robson, Tres Hill, Caleb Allen, sophomore Lorenzo Santinelli, and first-year student athlete Alex Jordan.
The women’s roster is made up of juniors, Paige Wood, Maddi Kamas, Jamie Welsh, Meghan Charles and sophomores, Aubrey House, Carrie Bowers and Logan Allen.
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