Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2015 - 37

helped Duke win the team championship at the NCAA tournament.
After graduating in 2001, she turned pro, hoping to get to
the LPGA Tour.
She never quite got there. Instead, she spent four years playing
on the LPGA's Futures Tour, the women's golf equivalent of the
web.com Tour.
" It was fun, " she says, " but it was also a grind. The last year I was
out there, it was really a grind. "
At that point, she started thinking about becoming a coach,
something she had never seriously considered before. It turned
out that she had a knack for it.
Her fi rst coaching job was back at Duke, as an assistant. After
helping the Blue Devils win another two NCAA crowns, she became
the head coach at South Carolina in 2007.
She inherited a team that was pretty good but not great, a top100
team in the rankings that was not quite ready to break into
the top 50.
For any college coach trying to build a better program, the fi rst
priority is recruiting. But you also have to work with the players
you already have and make them better-which Harris has done.
In her fi rst year, South Carolina was one of 24 teams that made
it through the NCAA Regionals and into the NCAA Championships.
The Gamecocks missed the Championships the following
year, but since then they have made it to the Big Dance fi ve years
in a row. Only six other teams can say that.
In the nearly three decades of USC's women's golf history before
Harris, the program produced two All-Americans. There have
been four in the seven years since then, including two last year:
Samantha Swinehart and Justine Dreher.
Swinehart graduated, but Dreher is back this year. A senior
from Valbonne, France, she is No. 14 in the Golfweek
Women's Individual Rankings.
Unfortunately, South Carolina's prize recruit, Nanna
Madsen, a freshman from Denmark who was No.
4 in the fi nal ranking of the fall, announced in November
that she was turning professional.
That was a major setback for the Gamecocks,
but they still have three players ranked in the top
75: Dreher, junior Mary Fran Hillow (No. 62)
and sophomore Katelyn Dambaugh (75).
Sarah Schmeizel, who tied with Dambaugh
for 80th at the NCAA last season, was out
for the entire fall but should be back when
USC begins the winter/spring portion of the
schedule in mid-February. That should give
them four players in the top 75 once again.
" Women's golf is really improving, " Harris
says. " So we have to keep getting better
all the time. When I was in high school,
we were doing pretty well if we broke 80.
Now you're trying to break 70, and the
players are hitting the ball so much farther.
They're driving it 270 yards, 280
in some cases. It's kind of amazing,
and it's been fun to watch it happen. "
www.mngolf.org
Directory 2015 MINNESOTAGOLFER
35
" Women's golf is really
improving. So we have
to keep getting better all
the time. "
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Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2015

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