Courtesy of Colorado State
FORT COLLINS – A year ago at this time, Sofia Torres was trying to get past being timid.
When she was playing well, her thought was not to mess it up. Not anymore.
Since then, she’s turned a corner. When her game is going well, she desires better. When it is better, she seeks out greatness.
The past two days, the Colorado State senior was spectacular in stringing together three consecutive strong rounds to win the individual title with a 16-under 200, a program and Ptarmigan Rams Classic tournament record.
“It’s insane. I’m a totally different person,” Torres said in becoming the fourth Ram to win the tournament, the first since 2002. “My game’s different is different, my confidence is different and that’s what’s out there on the course.”
On a day when the field came back down to earth at Ptarmigan Country Club, the home team had already built a soft landing place with a 19-stroke lead over Colorado, which the Rams were able to maintain on Tuesday by shooting a 5-under round to run away with the team title with a tournament and program record 818, a sensational 46-under par. It was the third time they won their host event, the first time since 2004.
It wasn’t just Torres who played well. The entire team did as all six players shot below par for the tournament. Pemika Arphamongkol, who broke the CSU record with an 8-under round on Monday, finished fourth at 11-under for the tourney. One stroke behind her in fifth was freshman teammate Kara Kaneshiro.
“Top to bottom … It was awesome,” CSU coach Laura Cilek said. “Honestly, I’ve never seen a team do that before. Top to bottom, everybody played well the whole time. I’m not sure who finished last on the roster, but they should definitely feel like they had a really good tournament. Within our team they may have finished six, but our entire team finished in the top 15.”
Top 12, to be precise. Lacey Uchida was eighth at 209 (7-under), while Andrea Bergsdottir and Katie Stinchcomb were in a tie for 12th at 212 (4-under).
The thing about the team was it wasn’t ready to come out on the final day and play it safe. The Rams knew the course would play harder, and it was the third day in a tight window. The goal was to finish strong, and they still felt they could collect birdies and avoid trouble.
And they did.
“That’s for sure. Everybody wanted to play well,” Uchida said. “It’s an individual sport, so you want to play well. But if you play well, then the team does well as well, so that’s good. Today was to keep the foot on the gas and keep it going all the way to the end.”
This was the first tournament win for the team since the Wahine Classic last fall, which also marked the first individual title for Torres.
The team obviously enjoys the home tournament, but there wasn’t any targeted talk about going out and hoisting the hardware. The goal, Uchida said, was to simply to play well. And standing right by the lunch buffet, her description was probably triggered.
“A win at home and tastes so good. Everybody has been so hungry, so it’s been nice to get something in our tummies,” Uchida said. “Everybody had a little taste for what it means to shoot great. I think this is the beginning of a good season.”
And confident, a trait, she said, the team has seen grown in Torres, making it a motivational tool for all of them.
Torres entered the day tied with Colorado’s Sabrina Iqbal, who currently is ranked 76th in the World Amateur Rankings. But what Cilek has seen in Torres since Hawaii last year is a sense of belonging on the biggest stage.
To the coach, it was even more apparent when Torres qualified for the NCAA Regionals last season as an individual.
“It’s just confidence. It’s seeing she’s beat top players in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, in the college area. At regionals last year she looked like she could go out and get to the national championships,” Cilek said. “I think she came into this year seeing that and know she could compete. She came down to the last nine holes with one of the best players in the world in Sabrina Iqbal from Colorado. She was steady, she held tight. She didn’t look nervous. The last couple of holes felt nervous, acknowledged it and calmed herself down, but to continue to get further under par is doing it more often and be confident.”
Torres admitted her hands shook a bit her final putt for par on the final hole, but by then, she’d done the heavy lifting. At spots in the day, she played from behind, tied and finally in front. She made her closing move on 15 and 16, with birdies on both.
She knew who she was playing and what was required.
“It was like a dogfight all day. She was up and I was down, then I was up, and she was down. It was fun,” Torres said. “She’s a great player; she’s ranked in the world, so that’s awesome, and beating CU is pretty good. For me, it was the birdies on eight and nine. They were long putts that weren’t close. I saved my bogey on 10, and I said I think I’m ready to go for this back nine and try to keep everything steady.”
Shaky hands or not, she was a rock down the stretch.
After getting dowsed by water bottles by her teammates coming off the 18th green, she leapt into her father Juan’s arms for a bear hug, while her sister, Sara, smiled on the side, her career ready to start next season at Cal Poly, a team which was in attendance.
It wasn’t her first win, or the team’s, but it was the first time Torres experienced both surrounded by loved ones.
“It’s surreal. Everything happened so fast, and doing it here with all the volunteers, with my family … That was awesome,” she said. “When I won in Hawaii, they weren’t there with me. I told them you need to come to the home tournament because it’s awesome to play, it’s so nice. You can visit Fort Collins, walk around. They loved it. It’s so nice they’re here with me.”
What they witnessed was a completely different player comfortable in her realm.
