Something was amiss in the opening round of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Women’s Golf National Championship earlier this month.
That much was clear to Hannah Ulibarri on the 4th hole at host site Eagle Crest Golf Club, a lakeside resort course about 35 miles west of Detroit. As Ulibarri, a junior at The Master’s University, near Los Angeles, and her two partners played the par-3, they could see the group ahead of them milling about on the next tee box, seemingly nowhere near teeing off.
This NAIA finale is the biggest event on Ulibarri’s calendar. As a freshman at her small Christian college, she had taken a one-stroke lead into the final round of the event before a crushing 78 left her in a tie for second. A year later, with her swing out of sorts, she missed the cut. This time around, Ulibarri told me the other day, “I definitely saw it as almost a redemption year.”…