Although the season is less than a month in, for head coach Todd Selders and his women’s golf team, the start of the 2009 season must seem like forever ago.
The Mustangs began the season playing at the Golfweek Conference Challenge that spanned three days and 18 teams. SMU finished as a team tied for 16th with an 82-over 946. Last weekend, the Mustangs competed with 14 other teams, including all the teams in the Big Ten, at the Lady Northern Invitational in Wisconsin. At the end of three rounds, the Mustangs finished last, shooting 88-over 952.
Selders has been the head coach at SMU for seven years now, and while he has been a part of many successful programs, including at Oklahoma and SMU, he also knows the bitterness of defeat.
“I’ve seen this before and I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said. “We still have a good, positive mind set. We’re going to keep that going and get ready for next Monday.”
Selders knows that his biggest priority right now is making sure that his team stays focused and motivated for the upcoming tournaments.
“I tell them to keep working on what we’re working on,” he said. “We’re doing the right and necessary things. The results haven’t been showing how hard we’ve been working on those things, but just keep working through it and eventually you’ll see better results.”
The women’s golf team has a relatively young core; out of the eight players on the team, three are sophomores and two are freshmen. One of the freshmen, Tanya Wadhwa, has been the Mustangs’ top player in the two tournaments played so far.
“We’re a young team, but that’s not an excuse because they’re good players,” Selders said. “It’s just a matter of getting it done, which we will.”
Despite the slow start, Selders is confident that he will have his team ready to make a push for the Conference-USA championships. Selders has won two Coach of the Year awards while at SMU and knows the formula to having a solid club.
“We have two more tournaments in the fall, and then we’ll have inter-club team competitions,” he said. “Then, we have four really good events leading up to conference play that’ll give us time to get ready for the championships.”
