By Alex Baker
NEWARK – Golfer R.J. Wren walks over to his bag, pauses for a second, then takes out the big stick. The menacing driver: capable of launching a golf ball the length of three football fields. He reaches down and jabs his tee into the turf, then rests the ball on top where it awaits its punishment.
He pulls the club back, feeling the peak potential energy as it reaches past his shoulders. Then, he lets it rip. THWACK!
The ball launches forward at blistering speeds then stops — seven feet from where it left, rippling the back of the practice net.
Before the glory of teeing it up on one of America’s top courses, the University of Delaware golf team spends countless hours practicing indoors. Three of the team’s six spring tournaments were played before March 12, well before the weather heats up in Newark. In those three tournaments the Blue Hens have found consistency, just not the kind they might have hoped for, with a 9th place and two 10th place finishes.
Golf is synonymous with warmth in the United States. Soft green grasses running through tall leafy trees, flanked by pure white sand traps and glistening blue lagoons. The Masters Tournament held each April in Augusta, Georgia signals in the true beginning of spring as millions tune in to see the world’s best players on the world’s most beautiful course. Yet, when the weather goes south and the leaves all fall, golf courses in colder climates are forced to pack it in for the season and wait out the winter.
While the courses are closed, golf still needs to be played. Delaware’s spring season begins in February, long before warm weather arrives in the Mid-Atlantic.
On a particularly chilly day in early March, as temperatures peak in the mid-30s and snow flurries fall, UD golfers stand in a line inside the Delaware Field House. Most of them wearing shorts and t-shirts, spending a half-hour chipping golf balls off the artificial turf toward hula hoops and buckets set up 10 to 30 yards away. For outdoor athletes their mood is far from sour despite having to practice inside. The team laughs and jokes with one another as they refine their swings.
“I actually think it helps us being inside,” says Assistant Coach Brendan Post. He isn’t the only one sharing this sentiment.
Says Wren, a junior, “It helps us get back to the fundamentals.”
It’s true the Blue Hens are somewhat limited indoors — the men’s team cannot practice full shots in the Field House as it is too small. Yet, downsizing the game seems to help the players.
“We do a lot of short game. We’re seeing it just in the last couple tournaments, all of our short game has been pretty good,” says Wren.
The short game work comes at the Field House, where the team practices wedge shots twice a week. It also comes at the hitting bay in the Little Bob. There the golfers can hit into nets and work on smaller facets of golf like grip, alignment, and putting speed.
When they do get to practice outdoors, like in the fall, the focus is often on how to play a round. The players train their full swings and course strategies. Yet, the work done indoors prepares them for the important spring tournaments just as well. “I think the short game tends to be sharper, maybe, in the spring than in the fall,” noted Post.
The Blue Hens have some time off before their next tournament in Spartanburg, S.C. on April 1st, but when that day comes, they will feel more prepared than ever. Wren emphasizes this when talking about the effect of winter preparation on teeing it up in a tournament, “It takes out a lot of the outside noise. It lets you focus on the important things, the simple things to get you going.”