The women’s golf team returns from a five-month break to play in El Dorado, Ark. on March 30 and 31. The team’s last tournament was Oct. 10 and 11 in Cabot, Ark.

According to www.HardingSports.com, the women’s golf team came in fifth place overall in its last tournament. In addition to the team’s placement, senior Brittany Marquez placed fifth individually, breaking the school record for the most top five finishes.

Marquez said that the disappointment of not playing as well as they had desired created a determination to play better this spring.

“Our biggest challenge is probably getting back into the mindset of golf tournaments,” Marquez said. “It’s a lot different than just going out during the week to River Oaks and hacking around the golf course. We’re going to have to be mentally tough this tournament in order to get back into it.”

The large break in time between tournaments has allowed the team to focus on their weaker skills displayed in the fall season, while continuing to progress their areas of strength in practice.

In her third year of coaching the women’s golf team, Christy Morgan said she feels like they are behind other teams because she chose to not have practices during spring break so that several members of the team could participate in spring break mission trips. However, she said she feels confident that they will be able to handle the preparation for competition in a motivated way.

“We are excited to see how we do at the first tournament of the spring,” Morgan said. “It will be a smaller tournament with fewer teams and a great chance to hone our skills as a team. It is the only tournament like this for the entire spring. The rest of our schedule will be against tough competition and will give us some great opportunities to compete and test our skills against others in our region as well as our conference.”

Freshman Sarah Creeley said she learned from last semester that strengthening her mental game will be even more important than strengthening her physical game this spring.

“This last tournament taught me to let go of the bad shots,” Creeley said. “I think we all struggle with keeping a positive attitude after not playing a hole as well as we wanted to. We have a team that is willing to give it our all and work our hardest, so these struggles and lapse of time will ultimately play to our advantage.”

The team will head to El Dorado on March 30 to compete in the 2015 Mystic Spring Creek/Southern Arkansas University Mulerider Golf Classic at the Mystic Creek Golf Club.