How good is Emily Wood?
Perhaps the more pertinent question is: How good would Wood be if she wasn’t swinging her sticks in Salida?
The Spartans’ senior golfer entered the spring with quite a resume — she had won 27 tournaments through her first three schoolgirl seasons, everything from nine-hole get-togethers to Tri-Peak League tournaments to invitationals to the one she yearned for so badly that she could nearly taste it, the Class 4A Colorado championship.
To date in 2010, she has finished first in five outings.
Now, if she could just do something about Colorado’s legendary bad spring weather, particularly this year’s gales in Salida.
“(Last week), I won, but shot a 41,” Wood said. “It was only over nine holes, but it was so windy, the tournament was called. I wasn’t too happy, but I guess it wasn’t too bad.”
Wood, first introduced to the game at age 3 and now well-versed in adverse conditions, has been forced to get used to it. Girls golfers begin their season arguably under the worst conditions of any sanctioned sport. (Conversely, boys golfers, in late summer and early fall, probably play under the best.) Unforgiving ground topped by yellow-grassed fairways that are still dormant. Greens, often as rock hard as the meat in your freezer, won’t receive shots unless you stand on them and softly drop a ball from your hand.
There’s also assorted precipitation, but the main yip in girls golfers’ games this season has been the wind. Salida’s has been like an arctic hair dryer.
Aside from colds, girls golfers can’t catch much else and, in Wood’s case, Jack Nicklaus hasn’t come to town and overseen construction of an elaborate layout complete with indoor practice facility.
A golfer’s winter in Salida seems like North Dakota.
“I putt and chip inside the house,” Wood said. “I use a little net and put it in between a doorway or chip down the hall. They’re 5-yard chips, but better than nothing.”
When the opportunity arises to go outside, Wood heads to a nearby field and uses a mat to launch balls she stores in a trash can, but the area is long enough for no more than a 8-iron. And she must round up the balls before it snows.
Wood went ahead and provided her own irony. She signed with Wyoming. And for golf, not kite-flying.
“Sometimes I hear it,” she said of others questioning her sanity. “It’s not too bad; other times I hear ‘I can’t believe you’re going there.’ ”
Actually, Wood added: “Most of the tournaments are in Arizona, Utah and Las Vegas, all warm places. And it will be good for me. It’s close to home, but far enough away.”
For now, Wood, battling green speeds on various courses, is preparing for a series of season-ending tournaments, including one in Grand Junction, where she will face 5A competition. She says it’s “good for me,” as well as her pursuits of defending her 4A title and breaking into the 60s. She’s still thinking about her round of 71 at Hollydot Golf Course in Colorado City, where she made the turn in 4-under par and was standing on the 13th tee knowing that scores of par on the remaining holes would ensure a career low.
“But I three-putted three of the last four holes,” she said in carding a 71.
And the wind had nothing to do with it.
Long-term, she hopes to make a living at the game.
“I’d like to become a pro at a really nice country club,” Wood said, pointing to places with little cold or wind. “Maybe Florida or California.”
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
