Seattle Pacific University’s women’s golf team has completed their indoor practice facility, a project that has been in the works since the spring of 2024. The facility includes a putting green with varying hole distances and a simulator for practicing on different course settings and tracking hit data.
Head Coach Tyler Copp said the team is happy with how well the facility is performing, particularly the virtual simulator.
“We’re really happy with how everything’s turned out. The first thing we purchased was the simulator, one of the top products that’s out there on the golf market, and they were able to offer us a college discount on it,” Copp said. “There’s a driving range feature, and then there’s also virtual golf courses that [the team] can play as well. That’ll be a huge tool for them.”
The second item Copp acquired for the facility was a 20 feet by 30 feet putting green. The green is equipped with eight putting cups, more than enough for all seven members of the team. Junior golfer Sarah Rhodes, an elementary education major and transfer student from Pacific Lutheran University, compared the experience to her time in PLU’s women’s golf program.
“It’s been amazing. We had a similar facility [at PLU], but we did have a smaller putting green, [and] we did have to share it with the men’s team,” Rhodes said. “It felt like a shared space, [even when] I was able to get some practice in, but this one is definitely bigger than the one at PLU.”
Rhodes’s teammate, Hannah Hochsprung, a sophomore nursing major, said the facility is useful for practicing technique but cannot simulate real-world factors as well.
“The simulator has been great. It’ll help us take a few strokes off in our upcoming tournaments, [but] one thing that differs from being in the simulator versus outside is temperature,” Hochsprung said. “When it’s wet and rainy outside, your ball’s not going to go as far. There’s [also] not a whole lot of slope on our putting green, so you have to mess around with that once you’re outside.”
Copp shared further plans for the facility, hoping to create a space where the team can gather outside of practice.
“Our players are spending a lot of time in there right now on their own, and we want to make it a space they can spend time in to hang out and do homework and that sort of thing,” Copp said. “We’re waiting for a couch to arrive, and then we’re probably going to throw in a table, and some chairs.”
Hochsprung is excited to see what the facility will soon become.
“We recently got a bunch of murals on the wall, so it’s very welcoming, and it’s starting to feel like our space to come together. It’ll be really good, especially for when we have recruits coming to visit, to show them that we have our space as a team,” Hochsprung said.
With their fall season wrapping up at the Flagler Fall Slam on Monday, Oct. 21, and Tuesday, Oct. 22, Copp is looking forward to using the facility more often during the team’s off-season in the winter months.
“We don’t have a ton of scheduled practices in that space right now, and that’s just because our fall weather has been so good,” Copp said. “Come winter time, some of the days where it rains too much outside and we can’t play or practice outside, the facility is going to be a great use for that.”
