Biola’s womens golf team played at Coldwater Golf Club for this season’s opener. The Eagles made history by competing as a team for the first time ever.

Although Biola has had a women’s team for the past three years, they have never had the minimum four golfers in order to submit a team score.

This was freshman Megan Anderson’s first experience competing in a tournament as a college player and she finished with a final score of 221. She said first-year coach, Hank Woodrome, has already been very helpful to her game.

Whitney Hobbs, a junior, who currently holds the women’s school record of 79, has been experiencing pain in her knee due to a surgery that she underwent this past summer. She agrees that Woodrome has already had a positive impact on the team. Despite the pain in her knee, she led the team with a final score of 175, placing 79th overall.

Sophomores Claire Prentice and Beth Williams finished the tournament with scores of 189 and 219 respectively. The team will have time to recuperate before returning to play for a busy five-day stretch in mid-October.

The Biola men’s golf team also performed well in Monday’s tournament at Sierra Laverne Country Club. This tournament of the season. It was a one-day tournament was their second of the season. The team was led by sophomore Joshua Mathis who placed first in the tournament with a score of 69.

It was the first tournament that he has won in his collegiate career. He placed third in last week’s tournament. Mathis left right after he played in order to attend a class, so he did not hear the good news until later. Although he did not have the opportunity to hoist the trophy, he said, at “It feels good, it’s pretty exciting.”

Due to the scorching heat this past weekend, many people did not dare to venture outside of the shade or air conditioning. This was not so of the Biola men’s and women’s golf teams who competed in tournaments despite the weather.

Collegiate golf tournaments are much more intense than they may seem. They begin with a practice round on Sunday followed by the actual tournament on Monday and Tuesday. The women play 18 holes on each day. The men play 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday.

On Monday, golfers are put into groups with two players from different schools based on their rank. How each golfer scores on Monday determines who they will be grouped with on Tuesday to finish the tournament. Individual scores are recorded as well as team scores. The team scores are the sum of the scores of the top four golfers from every team.

Most people would feel exhausted just listening to how much devotion is required of a college golfer. It may not be as fast paced as other sports yet it demands impeccable focus and dedication. For example, golf season spans from August through May, a period of 10 months. Basketball season lasts half as long. Biola was represented well by the men’s and women’s teams.

The women’s next tournament will be held at Pumpkin Ridge in North Plains, Ore. for the Culturame Classic Women’s Collegiate Invitational from Oct. 15 to 16. The next tournament for the men’s team will be held on Oct. 4 and 5.