Feedback on a women's golf story

Hello all. Just wanted to get some feedback on my first story for my college paper. Nothing special, just a review on a tournament the women's team participated in. Wanting to get some thoughts and things I can improve onto help my writing. Any feedback (positive and negative) would be greatly appreciated!






The Marshall University women’s golf team carded a two-day total of 663 to finish 13th out of 18 teams in The Preview tournament in Fisher, Ind., hosted by Ball State University Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Herd posted a 43-over-par 331 Monday at the Hawthorns Golf & Country Club and sat in 11th place. The team followed with an almost identical 44-over-par 332 Tuesday and slipped two spots in the standings to conclude the tournament. Toledo took home first place with a score of 611.

Senior Rachel Thompson shot a 13-over-par 157 (80-77) to finish in a tie for 13th to lead the Herd.

“I’ll take it,” Thompson said. “I feel like a win was obtainable. That’s what I was looking for.”

Even with a solid showing at the event Thompson was not entirely satisfied with her play.

“I was frustrated because I’ve been hitting the ball well,” Thompson said. “I went into the tournament and forgot how to hit a golf ball. I just stopped thinking about it. My short game saved me because I didn’t hit very many greens.”

The conditions were not favorable to the players during the two days of play and made scoring even more difficult.

“Conditions the first day were so wet, windy and so cold,” Thompson said. “The pace of play was taking longer. We did what we could do given the conditions. The course played much longer.”

Korakot Simsiriwong led the rest of the Herd with a tournament score of 165 (81-84) finishing in a tie for 43rd. Freshmen Ashley DeMoss and Gabby Marcum shot 170 (82-88) and 172 (88-84) finishing tied for 59th and 65th respectively. Junior Sarah Helly rounded out the Herd scores with a 175 (88-87) total and a tie for 73rd place.

Despite the conditions coach Meredith Knight Rowsey said the team has work to do, but a strong finish to the season is within reach.

“It was definitely not our best effort,” Knight Rowsey said. “Conditions were not good, but everyone played the same conditions. We have a lot to work on between now and [the final tournament]. We’re working on weaknesses [and] staying positive heading to the next tournament. If we’re playing up to our full potential we should be in contention.”

The Herd rounds out its fall season on Oct. 21-22 with a trip to Kettering, Ohio, to participate in the Dayton Fall Invitational.

 

I'll give a quick couple of things just on a quick glance.

First, the story is fairly straightforward, easy to follow, so that's good. It gave just enough info to where I knew what I needed without annoying me with too much flash, or losing my interest by being too dull.
So what I mainly have to offer are a few quick stylistic things:

A long time ago an editor put in my head to always separate non associated capitalized words or phrases to avoid even the slightest chance of confusion. Thus "Ball State University Tuesday" would be "Ball State University on Tuesday," though in reality I'd work at phrasing the lead graph a bit more compact. It does tell me what I need to know, and I'm not lost, but it could be a bit more compact, perhaps referring to it as a two-day event instead of Tue/Wed, since you mention the day of scores later anyway.

The very next graph you say they sat with a 331 Monday, so was it a Monday Tuesday event or a Tuesday Wednesday event?

"The team followed with an almost identical 44-over-par 332" almost identical is a pointless phrase to begin with, and it serves no purpose here. The reader can figure out how close the 332 is to the 331, without you telling them it was almost the same score. And if you are going to say it's almost identical, it better be almost identical (as in, players card the same scores almost throughout the tournament, which they don't do here)

"the conditions were not favorable to the players during the two days of play and made scoring even more difficult."
kill the even more difficult. even more difficult than what? That phrase represents there was a challenge other than the playing conditions, and all you've told us is a player had a solid showing, though she wasn't happy. So just opt for "made scoring difficult."

"Korakot Simsiriwong led the rest of the Herd with a tournament score of 165 (81-84)" kill the words tournament score, or at least the word tournament. We assume you haven't started talking about something else, so we know that score refers to the tournament


A lot of that, and some other things I'm ignoring, are nit-picky, but they are the type of things that make copy flow better.