Early in the faculty golf season, first impressions are key. A pair of gamers aced that task on Oct. 6 at the aptly-named Put Me In Coach Invitational.
In the girls’s division, Miami senior Rebekah Gardner gave credit to her putter after edging Hurricane teammate Anna Behnsen at Delaware Country Club in Muncie, Indiana. Gardner’s rounds of 73-69-71 left her at 3 under for the week, six pictures higher than Behnsen.
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“This has definitely been one of the best putting tournaments I’ve had in awhile and definitely my scrambling as well,” Gardner said, acknowledging that her short recreation made up for the fairways and greens she missed.
Normally, Gardner shows more accuracy than she did at Delaware CC, but famous that those misses allowed her to see enhancements in other areas of her recreation.
Miami has competed in three crew occasions so far this fall and in its season-opener, the Boilermaker Classic. Gardner hasn’t traveled with the crew.
“We have a very strong team this year, the strongest it’s been in a long time,” she said, “but I’m just very grateful for that because we push each other every single day and everyone is just so fun to be around. Definitely, it just makes me better. Although maybe it hasn’t gone my way so far this semester I’m proud of how I’ve kept working. Finally, this week I showed what I can do.”
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Since arriving at Miami in 2023, the Northern Irish participant feels she has gotten mentally more durable and become an all-around higher participant.
“You don’t have to hit the perfect shot all the time,” she famous, including that she has labored onerous on her self-belief.
Jim Garren, assistant girls’s golf coach at Miami, notes that it has been onerous to break into a robust Hurricanes lineup. Gardner, however, is on the rise after a summer time in which she did not play her best golf.
“She has all the skills to produce at this level and now she’s a collegiate winner,” Garren said. “Hopefully this gives her the confidence to bust in there and make her mark.”
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In the males’s competitors, Indiana senior Neri Checcucci did the bulk of his work with a second-round 65 and finally prevailed by 5 pictures. As Checcucci, from Italy, said of that second spherical, “Every putt was falling in.”
It marks his lowest rating in a faculty match, though Checcucci once posted a spherical of 64 at a junior match in France.
Checcucci said he felt that the greens were Delaware CC’s best protection, and he approached with warning a couple of key holes.
“Definitely hole 12 is challenging and for me, I cut the ball quite a lot – hole 5 wasn’t the best because it’s not easy,” he said. “You cannot start a ball left and make it cut back in the fairway so I’d say those two holes were the hardest ones.”
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Checcucci opened with a spherical of 2-over 72 and after his second-round 65, he came back the next day with a bogey on his first gap. That was a end result of three-putting from the fringe, and he did not let it derail his day or his match.
“Thankfully my coach helped me to stay calm and then I knew I had a good chance on Nos. 3 and 4 to make two birdies,” he said.
He added a birdie on No. 7 to make the flip with 1-under 34, added a 3-over 38 coming home and took the title – his first in a faculty golf match.
“A win is a win no matter how big the field is,” he said. “Feels pretty good.”
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The Put Me In Coach Invitational is now in its third yr, and has helped launch the seasons of two earlier winners. In 2024, Virgilio Paz went on to become a main issue for Missouri after successful the Put Me In Coach title in a playoff. Last yr’s champion, Michigan State’s Julian Menser, also entered the lineup later in the season and then won the Hoosier Amateur over the summer time.
For Checcucci, this marks a breakthrough and one he hopes will encourage its own “put me in, Coach” second.
“My game a couple weeks ago didn’t feel good at all, especially because my drive wasn’t on point,” he said. “Last week I had a little bit of a change and felt good about it this week. That’s pretty much the thing that kept me off the other tournaments so far is my driver. I think I can show the coach I can hit it and get it pretty straight and far and shoot low scores.”
This article initially appeared on Golfweek: Put Me In Coach Invitational: Rebekah Gardner, Neri Checcucci rating assertion wins
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