A senior and a freshman walk onto a golf course ...
For the Wildcats, this is just the beginning of their story.
The senior, Gile Bite Starkute. She provided the Wildcats most recent memorable moment at the NCAA Championships — a long birdie putt to beat Stanford in the 2021 quarterfinals.
The rookie is Julia Misemer. She started in her first tournament at the beginning of the season and placed second individually at the recent Raleigh Regional, putting up two rounds of 68 to drive Arizona to the NCAA Championships, which start Friday at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale.
Now, these two will lead Arizona as it looks to add title No. 4 — 1996, 2000, 2018 — to the mantel.
UA coach Laura Ianello, who has won two of those championships (one as a golfer in 2000 and one as a coach in 2018) has her team right where she wants it heading into the most exciting time of the year.
“Our ladies have been finishing this season ... on a strong, high note, and we’re really anxious and eager to get up there to show them what this team has in store,” Ianello said.
“These ladies continued to keep fighting hard. They came together and really polished up their games and then almost had a chance to win conference. And then, boom, that momentum led us right into Raleigh this last week, (where) we played really, really good golf. I don’t even think we’ve played our best golf yet.”
Ianello made the watch list for the WGCA National Coach of the Year award on Wednesday. Three other Pac-12 coaches made the list of 24: No. 1 Stanford’s Anne Walker, No. 9 seed USC’s Justin Silverstein and No. 29 Oregon State’s Dawn Shockley.
After reaching the semifinals in three consecutive seasons, the Wildcats just missed making the field at the NCAA Championships last season. Now they are back in Scottsdale for another run as the No. 19 seed in the tournament.
They will be relying on Starkute and Misemer.
Arizona freshman Julia Misemer has displayed the ability to keep her emotions in check on the course, to the point that UA coach Laura Ianello has compared Misemer's demeanor to that of Lorena Ochoa.
Calm demeanor
Misemer is no stranger to big moments and even seems to thrive off them. Besides putting up consecutive low rounds at the regionals, Misemer had a spectacular run at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Amateur as the last qualifier and defeated the No. 1-seeded golfer.
“Well, I guess I just remember what (UA assistant) coach Justin (Bubser) says, and that’s ‘Pressure is a privilege,’ ” Misemer said. “When I keep that in mind ... I just stay cool and calm. I have a hard time expressing emotions on the golf course. So, I express (a) normal amount of emotions in bigger tournaments. I just think about how fun it is, and how lucky I am to be there.”
Ianello and Starkute agree that this is one of Misemer’s superpowers.
Misemer’s coach goes as far as to compare her demeanor to one of her former teammates and one of Arizona’s best — Lorena Ochoa. Ochoa was a two-time NCAA Player of the Year, Pac-10 Champion and Freshman of the Year, All-American and on and on. Ochoa went on to become one of the top professionals on the LPGA Tour.
“I would say in this day and age a lot of golfers that we see are very, very hard on themselves,” Ianello said. “They’re very emotional on a golf course. They don’t compose themselves as well. And one thing we’ve seen from Julia from Day One that she got here is that she’s so coachable.
“On the golf course, if she makes a bogey, normally you can see the frustration on a player’s face. But she’ll just come right up to me and coach Jay like, ‘I bogeyed last hole, you know, no big deal.’ To see that she doesn’t have this fear in her and she’s like, ‘I’ll get a birdie back’ ... she has this positive, upbeat attitude, and she’s very confident in her process of her play. She knows her game. ...
“You see that in great players, where they’re not indecisive. That is one thing I can say about Julia is that she brings on adversity but with a such a good attitude, which is really difficult to find these days with these kids.”
Gile Bite Starkute pumps her fist after sinking the putt that beat top-seeded Stanford in 2021. Now, the senior is aiming to lead the Wildcats to a fourth national title.
Leading with words, action
Misemer and Starkute set the tone for the rest of the team. Starkute brings her maturity and experience from having success at the NCAA Championships. Last week, as they were heading into the last round of the regionals, it was Starkute who Ianello asked — last minute — to give the final message before taking the course.
“Gile has had a phenomenal year — by far her best year here at Arizona — and she’s continuing to get so much better,” Ianello said. “I knew she was pretty down on herself last week after the first two rounds, but I mean, it’s Gile Bite. I knew she could come back and she could play really well that final round.
“But something that she doesn’t realize is she is that captain, that leader that all of our young ladies really look up to, even though she might not see herself in that role. She’s really our matriarch. …
“These young women, they love her so much and they love each other so much that I knew that they would play hard for each other. But she’s definitely a great leader.”
It all worked. The Wildcats shot 7 under par, the top round of the day by five strokes. They moved from tied for fourth place to first after a golfer from N.C. State signed an incorrect scorecard.
Besides Misemer’s 68, Lilas Pinthier shot a 70 (finishing in 10th), and Carolina Melgrati and Starkute both shot 71.
This week they will be playing on a course that is very familiar to them. They’ve all played on it before, and they know how to deal with the Arizona heat.
As in 2021, besides having a squad that is peaking at the right time and a leader in Starkute who has been there before and delivered, the Wildcats have another ingredient that is crucial to their success: Even with all their different personalities, home countries and playing styles, they have come together to form a family.
Getting to know one another off the course through dinners and just hanging out has translated on the course to knowing when a teammate needs a boost — or a wave in this case, as Misemer waves to Starkute on every hole to help keep the energy up.
Regardless of whether Starkute is asked to give a pep talk to her teammates this week, she will share what happened two years ago as she stood over that long putt, the one that is etched in her mind forever.
“We had nothing to lose, and we were playing our hearts out,” she said.
“Coach (Ianello) always says, ‘We work hard throughout the whole, entire season. We deserve it, and this is what this week is about ... enjoying it.’
“We have that saying: ‘Bear Down.’ This is the time for us to bear down, and that’s what I share with them. Once (they) get there, they will understand what it means to be there. And yeah, we’ll just go in there and grind.”
Arizona women's golf coach Laura Ianello discusses her team's performance in the NCAA Raleigh Regional, a finish that puts the Wildcats in the NCAA Championships in Scottsdale. (video courtesy of Arizona Women's Golf on Twitter)
