When Lady Colonel head golf coach James Schilling started a women’s golf squad in the fall of 2001, he found himself with an unusual problem.He had to find at least five golfers to make up a female squad, but the challenge facing him was Louisiana does not have many female golfers. To help solve his problem, Schilling turned to the Canadian junior golf program.

He turned to Canada because there is an abundance of female golfers there who want to play year round, and by coming to Louisiana, they could golf at Nicholls.

Schilling said each province in Canada has a good junior golf program.

“Each province has a pretty good junior golf program, which you wouldn’t think,” Schilling said. “You’d think if you’re going to have golf, where would you have golf? In the southern U.S. where you can golf year round.”

“They can only golf four or five months, but golf is real big up there, and their colleges and universities don’t have the athletic teams like we do,” Schilling added. “That’s how I started looking there-just supply and demand.”

Since the women’s golf program began, Schilling has brought aboard five female golfers from Canada: senior Shawna Fraser and junior Heather Tate from British Columbia, sophomore Jaimie Myck from Alberta and freshmen Daniele Dunlop and Natalie Robinson from Ontario.

Fraser is the only remaining member from the first women’s squad. She said the program has come a long way since its inception.

“It’s a hundred times better-the quality of the play and just that we’re competitive now,” Fraser said. “We got here my first year, and we had tournaments where we were scoring 385-day totals as a team score. We had our lowest three rounds last week in Mississippi. We’re at 301 now, and we’re competitive. In woman’s golf, you’re doing really well if your team’s shooting below 310.”

At the Southern Mississippi Lady Eagle Invitation, the Lady Colonels’ final tune-up before the conference tournament, the team set multiple school records.

They recorded the two lowest finishes ever in school history, shooting a 301 (a new school record) in the first round and followed that up with a 306 (the second lowest total for a round.) They also set records for 36 and 54 holes with totals of 613 and 919, respectively.

Schilling said that he thinks the golfers have enjoyed watching the team improve.

“If you look at the progress that the team’s made each year, the scores have gotten better,” Schilling said. “The scores have gone down, and I think that they’ve enjoyed that as well.”

As far as how each golfer found her way to Louisiana, it varies.

Both Fraser and Tate found out about Nicholls through a placement service for college athletes in California called CAPS.

Myck said she was more interested in trying to play college basketball instead of golf. She said there are really no golf teams in Alberta because the golf season is so short. Things changed for her when she received interest from Sam Houston State.

“I was talking to the coaches at Sam Houston State, and they didn’t have the funds to give me what I needed to be able to come down here so they sent my name to Coach. He wrote me a letter because he had an opening for me,” Myck said. “I came down here for a visit, and I thought it was a good atmosphere.”

Robinson found her way to Nicholls through the Ping Golf book. She said the book lists all the schools in the United States that offer scholarships for women’s golf. She sent her resume to Coach Schilling, and he contacted her.

Dunlop said she came to America because she wanted to have more time to be able to play golf throughout the year while also getting an education.

Robinson said adjusting to college was hard because it was a lot different from high school. She said she did not find adjusting to a new country that different, however.

Dunlop and Robinson, who are roommates, both met each other by chance at the Provincial Tournament in Ontario shortly before arriving at Nicholls.

“It was weird because we were doing practice rounds, and we met on the first tee of our practice round,” Dunlop said.

Because of the great distance that separates Louisiana from Canada, the weather associated with Louisiana was one of the things the golfers had to adjust to.

“The climate was a lot different just because I’m used to having six months of six feet of snow,” Robinson said. “When we get snowstorms, you can’t go to school because the snowstorms are so bad. That was probably the most significant thing.”

Besides the weather, they had to adjust to the different type of grass.

“The grass is different down here too,” Dunlop said. “We have Bent grass back home and down here it’s Bermuda so it’s a lot different to play on.”

“It (Bermuda grass) can make the ball stand up differently and change your puts,” Tate said.

Myck said there are not that many differences between Canadian and American golf.

“The fact that you can play golf year round here is a huge difference, because back home where I’m from, golf season is maybe five months long if you’re lucky,” Myck said. “The courses are a little bit different here. It’s just a different kind of environment because when we’re in Louisiana, the courses we practice on don’t have that many hills at all where as the courses back home are extremely up and down.”

“The courses we play in tournaments and the courses we play back home are pretty much the same,” Myck said. “There’s not too much of a difference.”

According to Schilling, these girls all bring golf skills to the table.

“Heather Tate has the best short game on the team,” Shilling said. “Shawna Fraser has tremendous length. (She) hits the ball as far as most male college players. Daniele is just a good overall player, just a good consistent player. Natalie’s ball hitting-ball striking-is extremely good, and Jaimie’s just an overall good player.”

Besides being excellent students, which he considers most important, Schilling said they all work.

After they all graduate, they each have different plans for their lives.

Fraser, a human resources management senior, said she would be going back to Canada to work in a copper mine for the summer and then decide whether she wants to live here or in Canada. Tate said she will get a job in business or become a golf professional after she spends sometime traveling.

Robinson wants to become a registered dietician and enter pharmaceutical sales. She hopes to move to Phoenix where her brother lives. Dunlop has a desire to use a business degree somewhere in the golf industry while Myck wants to go back to Canada and teach.

Some expressed a desire to continue playing golf on the recreational level as well.

“I just want to play recreationally until I’m 80,” Myck said.