Amid a top-10 season lost, these Gamecocks faced COVID-19 obstacle: getting home
Everything turned so fast for Kalen Anderson’s South Carolina women’s golf team.
In the midst of spring break last week, the Gamecocks were ranked No. 6 in the country with the SEC championships just around the corner. Since they’ve been through the moment of seeing everything grind to a halt because of the coronavirus outbreak, the outlook turned to the more pressing need: getting people home.
“It was very heartbreaking,” Anderson said. “For our season to end like that, so abruptly. This group on and off the golf course all year has been unbelievable. But certainly this virus and this public health crisis is much bigger than sports. And the great part about my team is they all understand that it is out of their control. It doesn’t take away, obviously, from that heartbreak.”
Right now the team is figuring out travel bans and flight plans amid the COVID-19 global pandemic. South Carolina has five Europeans listed on the roster, plus one player from the Philippines.
Anderson said two players plan to stay in Columbia, while the rest will go home to be with family.
“The situation in Europe is obviously very unstable,” Anderson said. “And then the situation is changing here as well. So it’s trying to figure out what the different travel bans and different rules are in each player’s country. Certainly we’re trying to watch that, make sure that each of our players, their health and safety is our first priority, and we’re in contact with their families and what their families’ wishes are and those kinds of things.
“There’s been a lot of challenges with that, trying to get them home.”
The team didn’t even get a full meeting to process things as they were scattered when the news broke.
The Gamecocks were in the No. 6 spot in the WGCA rankings, five spots ahead of the next SEC team (Ole Miss). They were No. 9 in the GolfWeek rankings.
USC had been led by Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, who was averaging a 71.72, with Ana Pelaez and Lois Kaye Go about a stroke and a half behind. The team had come off a sixth-place finish at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate and a third-place finish at the IJGA Collegiate Invitational.
They would have played two more events, the first this weekend, before the SEC championship in late April.
Anderson said the news hit the seniors — Go, Anita Uwadia and Pelaez — hard. That was before the NCAA said it would allow spring athletes whose seasons were lost an extra year of eligibility, but there a lot of questions about the exact mechanics of that.
“I’m going to wait till I have all the information in order to present it,” Anderson said. “There’s a lot we don’t know right now.
“It definitely added a boost of just something positive to the situation, and hope.”
The SEC on Tuesday fully canceled the remainder of any 2019-20 sports seasons.
Anderson added she’s been proud of the way the university has handled all this and how her team had handled the season, and how they showed good attitudes despite the adversity that came with all this.
“Our kids handled it like champions,” Anderson said. “There was a lot of emotion.”
There’s an irony in how golf as an individual game could be practiced or perhaps played in the right condition while still conforming to social distancing. For players dealing with a lot, it could also be a way to blow off steam or tension. But at the moment, South Carolina’s practice facility is closed, along with the rest of campus.
“I think all of us are a little stir crazy already,” Anderson said. “But I think it’s hard for them, our practice facilities are, all university practice facilities are shut down, so right now with a lot of free time, obviously they’d love to go out and practice. Our sport takes place in the open air, but certainly everybody’s in the understanding that this is the way it is. It’s for everybody’s well being and best interest.
“It’s just the way it is right now.”
