Wanderscheid Signs with Vandals

The early signing period for most NCAA sports ends today. Last week on govandals.com we announced the signing of Zach Wanderscheid of Goldendale, Washington. I'm extremely excited to have Zach join our program next Fall. With the graduation of David and Brad this Spring we are going to have a couple of big holes to fill in our line-up and I hope Zach will be ready to compete right away in our top 5. Zach really came on strong this summer and showed he has the ability to not only compete with junior golfers but with amateurs, current college players, and local professionals.

It began in May when he won the local qualifying for the US Open in Dupont, WA and concluded in Moscow, ID, when he won the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Junior Boys' Championship. After his play this summer Zach was named the Washington State Golf Association and Pacific Northwest Junior Boys' Player of the Year.

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The Off-Season Begins

'09 Fall in the Books, Off-Season Workouts Begin

For those who frequent this blog, I apologize for taking so many weeks off. I really have no excuse except for I needed a break for a few days after our seven day trip to Long Beach and New Mexico. I even found time to play golf myself last week as the temperature in Moscow reached 60 on Wednesday. I was able to play golf in shorts in November and for the first 10 holes my game didn't miss a beat as I was four under...I should have known that my adage "the more I play, the worse I get" would come true, as I played the next 27 holes in about 6 or 7 over. That last time I played I think was about the last week of September. Anyway, enough about me. The team finished up the season in New Mexico State at the Herb Wimberly Collegiate. The highlight of the week came from freshman, Damian Telles, who finished T24 for his first top 25 finish in college golf. In Damian's last three events he had six of his nine rounds under-par. He finished the Fall season with the second best scoring average at 73.17. Jarred leads the team with a 73.0 average.

Damian at the Palouse Cougar Collegiate in September

Since returning home to Moscow after our final trip of the Spring, the team had about a week off before the winter workouts began last week. Right now the team is in the Iverson Speed Center working out as our workout schedule for the remainder of the semester is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon's.

Since the completion of the season we have had two home football games. One two weeks ago against Louisiana Tech was Homecoming for the University of Idaho. A tradition for many years at the U of I, is the annual Homecoming parade down Main street in Moscow. This year's parade marked the largest parade in the history of the parade. The parade is led each year by the student-athletes of every sport at the University of Idaho. Below is a picture from the middle of the parade as the basketball team in front of us hands out candy to the onlookers. However, they were probably eating more candy themselves than they were passing out!

Following the parade we were all treated to a great football game as Idaho won by one point over Louisiana Tech. The Vandals trailed most of the game and made a great comeback in the 4th quarter to win. On top of their win, it was Idaho's 7th win of the season which makes us bowl eligible for the first time in 10 years!

Student section goes crazy after Idaho scores on the opening kickoff

It is amazing to think that in just three short months we will be on our way home from the first trip of the Spring semester in Jacksonville, Florida. Three months is a long time, but with one month spent at home for Christmas break and another week at home for Thanksgiving break, we only have about 7 more weeks of school until our next event. During that time we will continue workouts, I will be meeting with each individual next week to review the season and begin mentally preparing for February and reaching our goal of winning a WAC Championship. We will also be utilzing our indoor facility two hours a week (NCAA Rules) to prepare us for practice which will begin in the middle of January after the guys return from Christmas Break.

This weekend the Vandals play against Boise State in rivalry week. Go Vandals!

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Two Tournaments in 7 Days

In about 45 minutes we will depart Moscow for the Spokane Airport. From there we will embark on a 173 hour trip that will take us to Long Beach, Calif., for the Del Walker Collegiate. and then to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for the Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate. We've had almost two weeks off since our last tournament in Reno which gave the team and myself a lot of time to prepare for our final trip this Fall. To this point our play has not been where any of us would have imagined but I'm excited about the position the team is in mentally as we head to California today. Something unique about this week's trip to Long Beach is that the tournament is of six count five scores format. It is a format that will greatly test each team's depth 1-6.

Personally, I like the format as it allows for much greater swings in the scoring when you are counting that one extra man. It is much easier to build a huge lead while at the same time much easier to come from further behind. We have spent much of the last two weeks working to perform under pressure and making every shot count. A majority of our time has been spent on our short game. Yesterday in our final practice of the Fall season, Stefan was the wedgemaster as he hit 36 of 60 chip shots from around the practice green within 3 feet.

As a part of the Potato Cup each player played two matches yesterday against one of their teammates in the wegde competition. Everyone hit a total of 120 chips with great focus and the intensity of competition. Brad and Damian were the only two individuals to go 2-0 for the afternoon and being on the same team, Team No1sBetter collected 5 of the 8 points possible yesterday. Team No1sBetter now holds a 19.5 to 15.5 point advantage at the end of the semester.

Unfortunately for Matt his 1996 NBA Finals hat was of no help to him yesterday as he wasn't able to defeat Justin or Stefan in yesterday's competition. While I'm sure the '96 Finals were where his love for "J's" began, he should have known that the Sonics got killed in that series and nothing from the '96 Seattle Sonics season would bring him any kind of luck. Or maybe it was the fact that it was a flat bill and he paid just $3.50 for the hat on Ebay!

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Bossio Collects 3rd Straight Top 25 Finish To Begin Season

Team Finishes 9th @ Nevada Wolf Pack Classic

This past week we traveled to Reno, Nevada, for the Wolf Pack Classic. One might say Fall has now definitely arrived...or maybe we skipped Fall and went right in to winter. Throughout the entire tournament the weather was brutally cold and windy. During the 36 hole day the temperature never got above 45 degrees and we had about an hour frost delay. However, the weather during the practice round was much worse...as we played our practice round in 45 degree weather and snow flurries. Yep, that is right...SNOW FLURRIES! The Sierra-Nevada Mountains to the West of the course (Lake Tahoe area) were covered in snow by the time we began play on Monday morning.

Matt Rawitzer reacts to his approach shot on the 12th green during the practice round as one of the heaviest snow flurries begins to fall, or maybe he was thinking about the new "J's" he would be buying when he returned to Moscow. Throughout the entire trip Jarred, Damian, and Matt talked about what kind of "J's" they would be getting and which ones are the best. Matt even found himself a Jordan Rules magazine in the Seattle airport on the way to Reno on Sunday. And, they even went as far as trying to get me to buy them team "J's" if the team won enough tournaments this season. For those of you not familiar with the "J" terminology. They stand for Air Jordan's. Jordan's began being released when I was growing up. Matt purchased himself some Retro 1's when he returned to Moscow. I've never owned a pair of "J's," (this week is the first time I've ever heard them refered to as J's) but if I did below is the pair I would buy.

This week we were again led by the play of Sophomore, Jarred Bossio. Jarred finished the event with rounds of 73-72-72, to finish in a tie for 17th. His third consecutive top 25 finish, which gives him seven top 25 finishes in 14 career starts. Freshmen Matt Rawitzer and Damian Telles, also posted some good rounds this week. Thru two rounds Matt led the team in 15th place with scores of 74-70 and Damian had two rounds under-par, with a 71-70 during the 2nd and 3rd round. While it occurred during two different rounds, Damian played a stretch of six holes in 7 under-par. To end his 2nd round he made three consecutive birdies and to begin his final round on Tuesday he began eagle, birdie, birdie.

David Nuhn hits his tee shot to the par 3, 190-yard 5th, with the Sierra Nevada's in the background.

Throughout the week we played some good golf and some not so good golf...for the tournament we made 53 birdies, which was the third most by any team in the event. Unfortunately we also made the least amount of pars in the tournament which means we simply made too many mistakes. We will take this event as a learning experience and prepare to get better for our final two events of the Fall at Long Beach State and New Mexico State. We now have until October 20th to prepare and we will begin a qualifying for the five spots to Long Beach State today. Jarred is exempt, and the rest of the team will be determined through qualifying. Long Beach State's event is a 6 count 5 format, which is very unusual but it will be a great opportunity to get one more guy some tournament experience.

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Kansas Invitational

Bossio Finishes 9th, 2nd Consecutive Top 25 Finish

This week we traveled to Lawrence, KS, for the Kansas Invitational. When we arrived in Kansas City our first goal was to find a Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant to get some dinner and watch college football. Unfortunately we spent an hour driving through corn fields, and making our way around detour roads before we finally ended up at a Mexican restaurant. I thought I had it all planned out for a quick trip to Buffalo Wild Wings but technology let me down. I didn't realize it was a possible sign of things to come. Brad typically sits in the front of the van with me and he told me I needed to let my human gps take over (I'm known for having a great sense of direction) but I relied on my new technology. It didn't work out so well...I wasn't being myself and maybe I should have known things were going to different this week.

This was Idaho's first trip ever to the Kansas Invitational. Hosted at Avlamar GC, the event is played on a great golf course. Alvamar while not a terribly long course by the yardage played a little longer because a couple of the 410 yard par 4's played like they were 470. As the guys had to hit 3 or 4 iron off the tee to avoid the trouble and then hit mid irons into the greens. Another tricky part to the course was the fact that in the days leading up to the event the course took on a lot of rain which softened the greens tremendously. Playing in cold/windy conditions any shot with spin into the wind was guaranteed to spin anywhere from 20-30 feet backward. The difficult of controlling spin paired with the fast/undulating greens meant we had to be on top of our lag putting and we didn't adjust to the speed of the greens very well in the morning round.

Jarred led the way with a 71 in the morning but unfortunately the rest of the team struggled as we posted an opening round of 313 (+25). Like myself getting lost where the team saw someone they were unfamiliar with, I saw a team I was definitely unfamiliar with during the opening round. The 2nd and 3rd rounds were much better, with a definite bright spot coming from the play of freshman, Matt Rawitzer, during the second round. In windy conditions Matt posted his best round in his short Vandal career with a 69, which was tied for the low round of the day. Jarred ended the week in 9th place, which for the second consecutive tournament gave him a top 25 finish to start the season.

Unfortunately I do not have any photos of this event as my wife took her camera (which I use for the blog) to Seattle for her sister's wedding. I guess her sister's wedding takes priority over pictures for the blog:). I'm off to Seattle tomorrow for the wedding and then will be meeting the team in Seattle to fly to Reno this weekend for the Wolf Pack Classic. A busy week is getting busier!

Go Vandals!

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Vandals Make Birdies Program

This month the number of page loads for the University of Idaho Men's Golf blog reached over 10,000! Of course many of the page loads are from repeat visitors, but since the beginning of the blog last Fall individuals have come across our page from all over the globe. Visitors have come from Argentina, England, and Canada, to name just a few countries.

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce all of our visitors to a fund-raising arm we utilize, Vandals Make Birdies. Through the Vandals Make Birdies program we have raised just over 10,000 dollars the past two seasons to help pay for added tournaments to increase our strength of schedule, more equipment for our student-athletes, and improve our winter practice facilities. All of the money raised through this program has gone directly to improving the experience of our student-athletes.

On the right hand side of the page you might have noticed the "Vandals Make Birdies Count." Throughout the season many individuals have either made flat rate donations or per birdie pledges for an individual. Included in their support of the program each individual who makes a donation receives daily email updates from me after each day of tournament play. It is their opportunity to get the "inside scoop" on Idaho Men's Golf. If you would like to be a part of this program and support the student-athletes of Idaho Men's Golf, a link to the brochure for the program has been included at the bottom of the "Vandals Make Birdies Count" section.

We are off to Lawrence, KS, on Saturday for the Kansas University Invitational. Don't miss out on the updates from this week.

Go Vandals!

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