The Asbury women’s golf program has officially been discontinued.
The decision was announced last week during a meeting with players, coaches and Vice President of Athletics Mark Whitworth. The team had been struggling to recruit enough players for next season.
This came as a shock to current members: freshmen Anna Hunsinger and Trinity Reese, junior Maddie Heineman and senior Gracie Turner.
Heineman opened up about the “incredibly important role” golf has played in her life, as she had competed competitively for over 10 years. Now, for her senior year of college, she cannot compete in her last semester which is “devestating.”
“I had a lot of flashbacks to COVID because this is the second time that a massive part of my senior year has been stripped away from me,” said Heineman.
Listening to Whitworth break the news, Heineman realized that the Berea invite would be her last official college tournament. And she did not play as she had hoped.
In the fall, she medalled in most of the tournaments she participated in and even competed in Nationals as an individual.
“In the spring I only had a few tournaments,” Heineman said. “I think we only had three that I was actually able to compete in and I played okay, but I did not play to the best of my ability.”
Heineman had hoped to redeem her spring season and her scores at the NCCAA National Championship and finish her golfing career in Flordia. However, it ended at Oxmoore Country Club in Louisville on a cold rainy day, luckily with her family by her side.
The girls got to play one last time this past weekend at the Spalding Invite in Louisville, KY. However, due to Highbridge Film Festival conflicts, the women couldn’t officially compete.
“We showed up on Sunday morning and the Spalding Coach was teary eyed as he told us how sorry he was for us and how bad he felt that our program is ending because they enjoyed playing with us,” Heineman said.
The women were paired together and they were able to finish out their last tournament as a team.
While this is currently impacting the team here, this is not only an Asbury problem. Nationally, there is a shortage in women wanting to play golf at the division three level.
“When I was searching for schools I remember not considering D3 schools,” Heineman said. “It is not for a lack of effort on the Atheltic Departments but rather just a difficulty to get girls interested with no scholarship incentive. I do know that Coach Scott tried everything and anything he could to keep us going. He put so much effort into recruiting and I couldn’t be more grateful to him for it.”
It was said Asbury head coach Scott Ferguson communicated with the NCCAA, which reported it is currently struggling to find women golfers. The organization is considering turning the women’s tournament into an annual invite rather than a National Championship.
There has been a known gap between the number of men and women competing in the sport, contributing to the lacking numbers. According to the National Golf Foundation, only 23 percent of golfers are female stacking against the 77 percent that are male.
“My dad always told me that golf is a sport you can play forever, I don’t think I ever really appreciated that until now,” Heineman said. “Even with the loss of the program I hope that doesn’t stop any of us from playing the sport we love.”