By ADMIR DURAKOVIC
Staff Writer
(TEANECK) – The FDU women’s golf team has just come off the back of winning the Checkmate Challenge Championship, which they hosted at the Seaview Golf Resort’s Pines Course in Galloway, New Jersey.
FDU hosted eight teams, including Navy, Dartmouth, Lehigh, Hartford, Saint Francis, Wagner and Siena. Of the eight teams, the Knights beat Siena and Lehigh in order to meet Navy in the final, where they won 3-2 on the last hole of the deciding match. Knights freshman Julia Warke won her matchup against Navy’s freshman Christine McDonnell by one point.
“It was pretty interesting to wait until the last hole to see if we were gonna win or not,” FDU senior Mailen Domecq Chantry said. “The competition went to the last hole so there was an intense adrenaline rush. To see a freshman define the competition at the end was nice, and I’m proud of all of them.”
The Checkmate Challenge tournament is one of the few in which the players compete against athletes from other schools schools directly in fighting for individual holes/rounds, as opposed to just trying to work for the best score over an entire course.
“Here we got to play against another player, and it’s more fun to finish a course and to have beaten somebody else,” Chantry said.
Galloway is a full two- hour drive down the Garden State Parkway. Despite the Knights hosting the competition, it never really felt like a home meet for the players.
“We didn’t know the course,” Chantry said. “We haven’t played there before. It wasn’t like we were hosting because we didn’t know the course and we didn’t know the staff. When you go to a (golf) course everyday you know the people who work there and you socialize. Over there we didn’t know anyone. But we tried our best and it worked out.”
The Knights will be traveling to Daytona Beach, Florida to compete in the NEC conference championships
FDU KNIGHTS from April 20 to April 22. However, recent weather struggles have halted their preparations.
“We still have winter/ autumn weather, so it isn’t great for practice,” Chantry said. “The conference will be in Florida, which is a little messed up because you go there and the weather is completely different, the ball flies differently and we’ll end up swinging differently.”
