A hurricane destroyed their facility, but top-20 UCF women persevere

After Hurricane Ian rolled through Central Florida last September, UCF head women’s golf coach Emily Marron dropped by the Knights’ practice facility at Twin Rivers Golf Club in Oviedo, about 10 minutes north of campus. While some flooding prevented Marron from getting a close look, the team’s golf house on the back of the range was above water.

At least it was then.

A day later, the Little Econlockhatchee River began to rise, and it wasn’t long before the facility was nearly 5 feet underwater. Inside, everything was destroyed – locker rooms, hitting bays, video equipment, even the $40,000 putting room and PuttView virtual green that was installed the year prior.

And yet, Marron’s team somehow had to play a tournament in a few days in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“We didn’t know if we were going to go,” Marron said. “We were stuck in a hurricane, didn’t get to practice, the girls were terrified. … We got there, and it was weird. We were just off that whole week.”

Marron calls the Blessings Collegiate, where the Knights placed 10th out of 11 teams, their “black marble.”

“We just throw that one out,” she added.

The rest of the season has been arguably the most successful in program history. UCF’s runner-up finish at the American Athletic Conference Championship marked its fifth second-place showing of the season, and the Knights enter the NCAA Palm Beach Gardens Regional as the fourth seed and ranked a school-record No. 19 in Golfstat.

“We’ve had a little bit of adversity, we’ve had to tough it out a little bit,” Marron said, “but they haven’t missed a beat.”

As their facility continues to be rebuilt – final inspection is supposed to be May 26, two days after the NCAA Championship ends – the Knights have had to improvise. They share the public range at Twin Rivers and are still able to use their private putting and chipping areas. However, they don’t have a bathroom or running water, both of which require a short cart ride to the course’s clubhouse. And with no team meeting room, Marron has created motivational and goal signs, and she’s stuck them in the ground outside.

“Basically, this whole semester we’ve had a garbage can full of golf balls and some flags,” Marron said.

Marron calls this bunch the hardest-working team she’s coached in a decade at the school. Her players typically will stay a few hours past the allotted two hours of daily practice. And with six players from four different countries – all international – it’s arguably the closest, too.

“They’re so far from home that we usually don’t have parents at events,” Marron said. “When we go to a tournament, we are a family.”

It’s a different team dynamic from the one that surprisingly got through regionals as a No. 13 seed in Cle Elum, Washington, back in 2019. These Knights led No. 2 Wake Forest with four holes to play at Tennessee’s event in the fall before losing to Demon Deacons by just four shots. And then at a loaded Moon Golf Invitational earlier this spring, UCF made three late doubles to drop from third into a share of seventh. Three Knights – senior Tunrada Piddon, senior Anna Nordfors and freshman Pimpisa Sisutham – are ranked inside Golfstat’s top 100 individually, and a fourth – junior Jess Baker – is the reigning British Amateur champion.

In other words, UCF is no longer a squad that will be happy just to qualify for nationals.

“We’ve gone toe-to-toe with some of the best teams in the country,” Marron said. “We have the firepower with the five that we have, and if they all do it on the same day, we can go against anybody.”

One of those signs that Marron made? It says, Let’s go to the very end.