North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Freshman Street Reins In Putting Stroke
5/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH Emily Street recently got a tip from NC State senior associate athletics director Nora Lynn Finch that has helped turn her game around.
She picked golf, primarily because she thought she could win better prizes at local golf tournaments. She took lessons from Hartwell Baker at the Marion Lake Club and continued to get better as she got older. As a freshman at Chase, she and classmate started the school’s girls golf team and it wasn’t long before she caught the attention of college recruiters, even though she was only playing with a skeleton set of boys iron-shafted clubs.
When she arrived at NC State, Wolfpack head coach Page Marsh and assistant Ashlee Dean went about remaking Street’s swing. They got her a better set of clubs and sent her to work with Ted Kiegiel at Raleigh’s Carolina Country Club. But there was still a little something missing with Street’s putting.
“Nora Lynn told Coach Marsh that she used to ride horses, too, and that golf is kind of like guiding a horse,” Street said. “If you get tight in the reins, the horse can feel it. He will get anxious and rear up. The same is true with your putter. You have to grip it lightly because your putter can feel you get nervous. So you have to apply horses to golf. “That is what I started doing and I have been putting better ever since.”
In her five tournaments this spring, Street has been one of the Wolfpack’s most consistent players, notching the team’s second-best stroke average (77.0), just behind sophomore Lauren Doughtie. Heading into this weekend’s NCAA East Regional Championship in Baton Rouge, La., Street has high expectations that the Wolfpack can advance to the NCAA Championships. Part of the reason has been Street’s play. She finished a team-best 15th at the ACC Championship two weeks ago and her game has gotten stronger as she has gotten more comfortable with her new swing.
“I could still play better,” Street said. “But now that I have my swing all worked out, I have been playing pretty well.” But getting to this point was difficult for a player who was used to success on the golf course, in the pool and on the track. The 2006 runner-up in the North Carolina Amateur was twice a runner up in the North Carolina High School Athletics Association championship. She swam in three relays and two individual events in the state swim meet and qualified for two events in the state track meet. She couldn’t participate in the latter, however, because it conflicted with her golf schedule.
“I was really stressed when I got here the first semester,” Street said. “I didn’t feel like I was helping the team or earning my scholarship. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything. Then, all of a sudden over Christmas break, everything started falling into place and I started playing well.” Marsh saw Street’s potential when the young player competed as an individual in a fall tournament in Kentucky. The coach had her assistant follow Street around for 36 holes and identify her swing issues.
“We saw immediately what was missing in her game,” Marsh said. “We could also see all the positives that were there: her competitiveness, her drive, her coachability. She has the ability to change, and the confidence to listen to instruction and drop what she is doing wrong.” Street and Doughtie are the Wolfpack’s top two players heading into the East Regional, which the sixth consecutive appearance in the seven years of the program’s existence under Marsh.
“I think this team has lots of possibilities,” Marsh said. “What is neat about them is that they are very young. They have been learning and taking things in all year. They feel like they have yet to play their best golf. We have our best ranking of the season (37th) and we still don’t feel like we have played our best golf. That’s neat.” Street believes she and her teammates are capable of advancing to the NCAA Championship, for the first time in school history, if they all play at the top of their games. The event is slated for May 22-25 in Daytona, Fla.
“We just have to play our game,” Street said. “We have so much talent on the team. We all have good rounds, but they are all on different days. We have been playing well lately, so maybe this is our time to get it together and play well all at the same time.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
