Golfer drives team to regionals

By By Travis Robinett

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Sophomore golfer Amanda Costner could have been a softball player instead of a golfer, but during her freshman year of high school, she had to choose between the two.

“My doctor actually told me that I had to choose sports,” Costner said. “Softball was kind of messing with my golf swing, so I decided that I was going to take golf seriously and I wanted to play at a collegiate level.”

During her second year on the women’s golf team, Costner has proven to be the most consistent player. This spring she is the only player on the team who averages fewer than 80 strokes per round in tournament play. She has posted the top Jayhawk score in every tournament but last week’s Mountain View Collegiate in Tucson, Ariz., where she came in second.

Part of Costner’s success comes from taking lessons from golf instructor Tracy Phillips whenever she goes home. Phillips also teaches some LPGA players, Costner said.

“I’ve been working with him since the beginning of last summer,” Costner said. “He has almost completely changed my swing.”

Coach Erin O’Neil has also contributed to Costner becoming a better player. In O’Neil’s first season with the team, she has already made an impact.

“Coach O’Neil is great,” Costner said. “She is very competitive. She wants to win, and she will do everything she can to help us get better. She is very knowledgeable about the game and its mental aspects.”

Being a former professional who played on the Futures Tour gives O’Neil knowledge that team members like Costner can use to improve their games.

Costner dreams of playing professional golf someday, like O’Neil did, but for now she must concentrate on the team’s goal to reach regionals.

“Right now we’re ranked 22nd and they take 21 teams,” Costner said. “So we are right on the bubble. I believe we can make regionals if we do well in the next two tournaments we play.”

The Jayhawks are coming off of their most important performance of the season so far. At the Mountain View Collegiate, Costner said the team gained a lot of confidence.

“We shot all three rounds under 300 for the first time all year, with a lot of scores in the low 70s,” Costner said. “Our freshmen did awesome.”

Even if the Jayhawks do not make regionals, Costner has two more years of collegiate golf to look forward to. Her goals include winning a tournament individually and helping the team win a tournament.

She decided to come to Kansas over Tulsa, Oklahoma and Oral Roberts. She said that since she was little, she wanted to attend Tulsa.

“I took my visit here and I really felt like this was a place where God wanted me to be,” Costner said. “I liked all the girls here, and I knew that it would be a good opportunity for me to play in good tournaments at a Division I school.”

Costner said that now that it is the end of her sophomore year, she knows this is exactly where she is supposed to be.

Edited by John Scheirman

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