By Tony Santangelo, sports editor
Senior Margherite Pettenuzzo recently committed to the University of Oshkosh in Wisconsin for golf. Oshkosh reached out to her in the middle of her junior year season. Fortunately for her, the team primarily plays in Illinois but their home golf course happens to be only 10 minutes away from the college. Only 39 people belong to the golf course so Oshkosh’s team never has to worry about a backed up golf course on their home turf.
Pettenuzzo was torn between Eastern Illinois, which is Division I, and Oshkosh, a Division III school. The deciding factor was the amount of money that she received from Oshkosh and she liked the big campus feel that Oshkosh offered with 15,000 students. Pettenuzzo believes that Hamann was a major factor to her success as a player
“Hamann is the best coach I have ever had in my life,” Pettenuzzo said. He wants you to become college athletes. He wants you to continue your career and he prepares you for it [with] everything we do at practice.”
Pettenuzzo has played golf her whole life but did not play competitively until her freshman year. This shows the amount of time that Hamann works with you according to Pettenuzzo. She was in eighth grade when the girls’ golf team won state. This team consisted of players like Kiley Walsh and Ally Scaccia. Every now and then they come back for a practice and normally one of them goes with the Prospect golf team on their summer trip.
Pettenuzzo likes watching them play because you can see how composed they are throughout their whole game and she aspires to play like them in the future.
Starting in the spring and going until the end of her season, Pettenuzzo will go to the golf course at least once a day, sometimes twice a day for practice. Practice for her is “…not a drag…” because you get to be with your friends playing the game that you love.
“At practice it’s not time to goof around, [Hamann] means business,” Pettenuzzo said. He definitely has instilled in me that I can be the player that I want to be.”
Overall this experience for Pettenuzzo is relieving because picking a school to go to for the next four years was very stressful according to her. Now that she has settled on a school, she can focus on the next season and improving as a player.
“My most memorable moment was when we went to state last year,” Pettenuzzo said. “It was such a cool experience and I think that made me a better player. We ended up taking ninth so we didn’t play that great but it made me more experienced and gave me more knowledge to my own golf game, knowing what I could do under pressure.”