Well as we continued our Spring Schedule today, we had to fight mother-nature once again.  Our spring invite has bad weather every year and it continued this year.  Our 36 hole event was shortened to 18 holes due to excessive rain, 40 degrees, and high winds.

This Johnnie team continues to impress me with its depth and determination.  There were 17 teams at our tournament today and we finished 1,2.  I have to give some credit to where credit is due.  Coach Alpers has done a phenomenal job with recruiting and preparing all the guys on this team.  The guys that are not on our first team are definitely fighting hard to get on there and earn a trip to Nationals with team.  I am so proud of all these guys.

We are most certainly not playing our best golf yet but there are improvements being made.  The rust is almost all off the swings now but the mental games still need to improve a little.  I speak for the rest of the team and myself in saying that we are all still making some stupid mistakes out there that our costing us strokes.  Those mistakes will need to be takin care of in 2 weeks when we go for our 3rd straight National Championship.

I know for us Seniors, the fact that we will be graduating soon is definitely setting in, in the full sense of the word.  It makes me feel good that the underclassmen are playing well.  The will do great taking over next year!  I have complete confidence that they will keep that tradition, of great Johnnie golf, going.

We square off tomorrow against our Alumni.  They like to call themselves "legends" but we all know they are just trying to live in the past.  They don't stand a chance tomorrow.  It's a great match-play event, with a dinner and some comraderie to follow.  It will be a blast!

We finish up the regular season next weekend at the St. Olaf tournament on Saturday and Sunday.  Then we graduate and head to Nationals the next weekend.

Take care all and keep them flying straight!

Joe Schoolmeesters......aka...Schooly

Hey everyone,

Before I start, I have to make a comment about the weather (it's just something you do in Minnesota in the spring).  It's supposed to get up to 80 today!  We are pretty excited, but it's also going to go back to 45-50 and raining the next few days, so it all evens out in the end.

Since our dual with St. Cloud State, we had a dual with the University of St. Thomas.  This has turned into an annual affair known as the "Johnnie/Tommie Cup."  St. Thomas is our biggest rival within our conference for any and all sports (both of my parents went to St. Thomas, but don't worry, my sister and I got the family going on the right track by attending CSB/SJU).  We have won the Cup for the first 9 years of its existence, but St. Thomas had just won the Buena Vista Invitational by shooting 587, so we were expecting a good match.  Just like our last dual against St. Cloud, this one was a modified match play competition.  We shot 290 as a team and our blue team shot 306, while St. Thomas shot 313 and 318.  We also won the match portion of the dual 10.5 to 3.5.  Four of our thirteen guys who played shot even par, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

We also played in the Bobby Krig Invitational this past Monday and Tuesday.  We played 36 holes on Monday in 30mph winds and temperature that never got above 50...not exactly dream golf weather.  It was more a battle to hang on and make as many pars as possible, rather than trying to make birdies and shoot a low score.  Tuesday was a little warmer, but even windier than Monday.  We had a one shot lead going into Tuesday, but unfortunately, we let it slip away and finished second to Luther by 5 shots.  Instead of focusing on our poor performance, we are looking ahead to what we need to do to get better.  Our focus and mental games are dull right now, and this weekend was a great wake-up call.  We can't look ahead to Nationals yet, and I think we were starting to do that.  We need to focus on each day, each round, and each shot; we need to get better all the time.  We've got 3 more weeks to sharpen up before the big dance, so we like the way things are shaking out.

I'm going to go enjoy this great weather!  We return to competition this Sunday for our own Spring Invite.  Peace out, and as always...

Keep your head down.

Joe Daly

Well our spring season got underway yesterday in a dual with St. Cloud State University.  A little cross-town rivalry if you will.  Each team had ten guys play.  Our varsity five won 302-304 and our JV won 307-321.  It was also a modified match play event where each individual competed against another and whomever shot the better score, got their team a point.  We won that contest 7-3.  So we ended up winning every contest which was good but we all felt like there were a lot of shots left out on the course.

The weather looks to be really promising for the rest of the week with temperatures in the 60's almost every day.  Our spring season will really pick up starting this weekend with a dual against St. Thomas on Saturday.  The good ol' Johnnie-Tommie rivalry will be in full effect with the Tommies coming off a nice win at the Wartburg Invitational.  We then leave Sunday for the Gustavus Invitational on Monday and Tuesday.

Speaking for the seniors on the team, I can say that the realization that college is coming to an end is really starting to set in.  With golf, we only have 10 days of class left and then we will be cut loose into the real world.  Its definitely a sad feeling to know that the days of playing for the Johnnies are soon to be gone.

So competition is hot and guys are pushing eachother.  The next couple of weeks are going to be real exciting and we have good feelings about the way things are headed.  Confidence is key and that is something I have in all the guys on this team that they are doing everything they can to get St. Johns another National Championship!