Scotland's Connie Jaffrey Receives Individual Bid for NCAA Regional
From the K- State Website
After senior Connie Jaffrey was announced as an individual qualifier to the NCAA Regional in Madison, Wisconsin, K-State women's golf head coach Kristi Knight wrapped up an interview with a simple summary of Wednesday.
"It's a good day for K-State golf," Knight said, as K-State's women will be represented in the postseason for the fourth-straight year, tying the program's longest such stretch.
Jaffrey (Troon Ladies) held no nerves as she sat down to watch Wednesday's NCAA Women's Selection Show on the Golf Channel. K-State women's lone senior, with two tournament titles in her final campaign alone, felt confident the "best golfing performance" of her career would leave her playing in an NCAA Regional somewhere.
"The coaches were pretty confident, which made me pretty confident to see my name up there," Jaffrey said. After about an hour of waiting for the individual qualifiers to pop up, Jaffrey finally saw what she expected. She was chosen as the top individual qualifier for the Madison Regional, where she will play the University Ridge Golf Course on May 7-9.
“It's always a good feeling when you go to Regionals," she said. "It's what you worked for." Jaffrey extends K-State's streak of being represented in the postseason to four years, tying the program's longest run of NCAA appearances from 2001-04.
"It's not easy to get in as an individual and it's not easy to get in as a team," Knight said. "I'm just really proud of Connie. She's just had a really solid year. She's just played extremely well. Over the course of a long season, spread out over two semesters, she did a great job. I'm really happy for her and really proud of her."
A native of Scotland, Jaffrey said she takes pride in keeping K-State's name involved in NCAA's postseason. She hopes it can lead to more in the future. "I'm always proud and honored to represent K-State. I do feel as though I'm part of the family. That is K-State's motto. We are a family, so I definitely think that's important, bringing them and representing my college in regionals," she said.
"It means that our program's strong, it definitely gets our name out there and hopefully more players will be encouraged to come to K-State."
While at K-State, Jaffrey said she's taken her putting to another level. This season, she's focused more on her ball striking to gain consistency all over the course. Both are evident in her 72.48 stroke average, which is nearly two strokes lower than her career-best average and is on pace to break the single-season school record set by her former teammate, Madison Talley.
More than anything, however, Jaffrey said the biggest difference this season has been how she's mentally approached it. "It's been a happy environment for me," she said.
"For my senior year I just wanted to go out with a bang, so I was less worried, less stressed, and just kind of had a bit more fun playing tournaments and putting no pressure on myself. I definitely think having more fun and enjoying it has made me perform better."
