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Summerville's Hetzel keeps the faith while building Georgia
Written by BOB GILLESPIE
bgillespie@thestate.com
Posted on 04.17.09
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SEC Women's Golf Championship
WHERE: Cobblestone Park Golf Club, Blythewood
WHEN: Today-Sunday
TEAMS: The SEC has six teams ranked in the Top 20 by Golfstat and Golfweek: Alabama (No. 6 /No. 8), Auburn (No. 7/No. 6), LSU (No. 8/No. 9), Georgia (No. 14/No. 15), Arkansas (No. 16/No. 18) and Vanderbilt (No. 20/No. 19). USC is ranked No. 41 Golfstat/No. 45 Golfweek).
TOP PLAYERS: Candace Schepperle, Auburn (No. 2 Golfweek’s Top 100 individual players), Megan McChrystal, LSU (No. 11), Kathleen Ekey, Alabama (No. 21), Dori Carter, Ole Miss (No. 31), Cyndey Clanton, Auburn (No. 34), Camila Lennarth, Alabama (No. 35), Jessica Yadloczky, Florida (No. 36), Mallory Hetzel, Georgia (No. 38), Marta Silva, Georgia (No. 40), Nathalie Mansson, Tennessee (No. 50). USC’s Benedicte Toumpsin is ranked No. 62.
USC STARTING LINEUP: Benedicte Toumpsin, Katie Burnett, Cayci Ruppe, Taylor Barrett, Corrine Carr
TEE TIMES: Today and Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-10 a.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m.-9:30 a.m.
ADMISSION: Free
DIRECTIONS: From Columbia, take I-77 north to Exit 27. Turn left at top of ramp and go ¼ mile to Cobblestone Park on right.
Mallory Hetzel wondered if she should be at the UNLV Spring Invitational that week in March with her Georgia golf team. Then, in what she terms a moment of divine intervention, she knew she had made the right choice.
The senior from Summerville was in contention, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Days earlier, her father’s brother, Patrick, shockingly died of a heart attack at 43, leaving a wife and four young children. She debated staying home, but her parents, Doug and Harriet, told Hetzel her uncle would have wanted her to play.
Then “(at the) 15th hole the last day, I had a 50-footer (putt) for birdie,” she said. “I hit it, and halfway there it hits a rock, it kicks the ball two to three inches left ... and it went in dead-center.
“You’re not telling me that wasn’t something from above. I believe that.”
Believe this: Hetzel rode that emotional wave to her first victory — she tied teammate Marta Silva — in a college career that previously had been a disappointment.
“I told myself, ‘Damnit, Mallory, let’s win this thing,’” she said. “I had a weird sense I was going to do it, that (Patrick) would help me.”
This weekend, Hetzel and the 14th-ranked Bulldogs seek redemption of another sort in the SEC Women’s Championship. This is Hetzel’s first trip to Columbia since she won the 2004 Women’s S.C. Amateur Championship at Spring Valley Country Club at age 17.
Back then, everything seemed possible. But Hetzel, an honorable-mention All-American as a freshman, struggled the next two years to maintain that level of play.
This season, the same has been true for Georgia. Top player Krystle Caithness of Scotland unexpectedly turned pro in October, leaving the Bulldogs with little experience at the bottom of their lineup.
Still, Hetzel said, that does not totally explain Georgia’s failures. The Bulldogs finished third in Vegas despite two players tying for first.
“We should’ve dropped a bit losing (Caithness), absolutely, but to fall this far isn’t all because of her,” Hetzel said. “We, myself included, haven’t played our ‘A’ games.
“I told our No. 5, a freshman, ‘Look, the biggest thing now — for me, too — is to trust your game.’ We need to go out and let go of expectations, just get out of our own way.”
The past two years, frustration with her game became so bad, Hetzel nearly quit. “Ain’t fun when you’re shooting 80 and not knowing where the ball is going,” she said.
Two things turned her around. Coach Kelley Hester discovered Hetzel was using the equipment she had played with as a junior, but maturity and increased strength meant her shafts were too “soft” for her swing. New clubs yielded improved results.
More importantly, Hetzel said, a year ago she began working with Tim Simpson, the former PGA Tour and current Champions Tour player — and Georgia alum — who lives in Lake Oconee, Ga.
“He’s helped with my swing, but more so (with) thinking better,” Hetzel said. “My dad was always the only one I went to for swing help, but Tim provided a boost.”
“I credit Tim more than the equipment,” Doug Hetzel said. “She went to the TaylorMade facility for a fitting, but when she got the clubs back, she couldn’t hit them. Tim had to fix the loft and lie. He told (company officials), ‘What are you trying to do to my girl?’”
This weekend, with the proper equipment and mental approach — and maybe something extra — “Tim’s girl” wants to lead Georgia to an SEC title.
“We should absolutely contend,” she said.
Family and friends hope to see that. But Doug Hetzel already has the best reward he could imagine.
“We were speechless” at Mallory’s win in Vegas, he said. “We were torn whether to send her, (but) I think we did the right thing.”
He paused, and added softly, “That ... was something.”
Reach senior writer Bob Gillespie at (803) 771-8304.
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