Darwin leads women’s golf through promising second season

Nov. 3, 2014

Brandon Applehans
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Freshman Alex Darwin helped lead the Mountain Lions through the midst of their second season with a women’s golf team, breaking her personal career best scores as tournaments proceeded.

But that’s not what she expected.

“I kind of expected it to be a disaster,” said Darwin. “I didn’t expect to play my best golf ever. I expected to play decent.”

Darwin shot a program record 76 at the Colorado Christian Invitational, helping the Mountain Lions to a fifth place finish.

The record didn’t stand long.

Darwin lowered her record to a 75 on the first day of the Western New Mexico Fall Invitational, but freshman Michelle Romano promptly lowered it to a 73 the next day.

After a ninth place team finish in that tournament, the Mountain Lions concluded the season with a sixth place finish in the second Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference event of the year.

Darwin sees the need for the consistency preached by head coach Sadie Farnsworth, but feels that a golfer is only as good as their next shot.

“Being able to play one bad round and to come back and play a good round the next day is always a huge confidence booster,” she said.

Darwin feels the team outperformed expectations.

“I think we all performed better than we thought we were going to,” said Darwin. “It’s just a matter of all of us coming together.”

Darwin explained that when it comes to practice, the team is competitive. But when the team isn’t competing, they come together like a family.

“The team was sitting in the airport coming home from Phoenix and we were all playing a game. Even coach and all of the players were laughing and goofing around,” she said.

The future of the young program will be on the shoulders of the freshmen.

“It’s going to be an awesome program. In just a year, to have improved as much as we did says a lot about coach Farnsworth, but we’re going to be a good team,” said Darwin.

“Breaking records and shooting under par. Why not do it?”