University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Off the Tee at the Sam H. Hall Intercollegiate
2/17/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Off the Tee at the Sam H. Hall Intercollegiate
Chronicles of Golden Eagle Golf
By Justin Emil
Sam H. Hall Intercollegiate
Day 1, the practice round, February 16, 2003
The floodgates opened if you haven?t noticed over the past few days, and no group has paid more attention to the Weather Channel than the Golden Eagle Golf Team. We played the practice round today for the all-important home tournament at Hattiesburg Country Club. It doesn?t happen very often, but every once in a blue moon college golfers get the home field advantage.
It was a day when you usually would enjoy being a couch potato, but we played ?mud golf.? Hattiesburg Country Club was under water today and it was very muddy. I looked like I had rolled around in the mud after taking a little too much ground with my wedge-shot on hole-number three. Of course the wind was blowing directly into me and carried all of the mud from the shot all over my dry-cleaned uniform and previously white cap.
Here we go again, after a great showing at the Tulane Intercollegiate, but this time we are not the ?underdog.? We are playing one of our home courses, and our record at home proves that we can hold our own. Mike Soroka, Shane Rushing, Ben Snow, Justin Elliott, and I are the featured fivesome this week. Matt Wofford, Will Taylor, Jon Borne, and Danny Dennis are also playing this week as individuals. We are excited about the chance to play a college tournament at Hattiesburg Country Club. It is one of our favorite courses around, and it is a perfect setting for competitive golf.
The ?mud golf? was a little sloppy, but after a shower and a power nap, we were ready for the banquet honoring Coach Sam Hall. Coach Hall was the golf coach here when I first came to Southern Miss, in 1998. He has done so many great things for this program, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude.
The dinner was good, and the dessert was great. You cannot go wrong with a little hot peach cobbler topped with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream. We all got a good laugh when Coach Johnson told the crowd some of his Coach Hall experiences. He did seem to say the word ?uh? a lot, but we will give him credit for doing a good job regardless.
We were quickly out of there and on our way back home where we gratefully accepted sleeping in our own beds. A good night?s sleep is all we need to go out and play well tomorrow.
