By Brian Robin
Kathryn Hosch looks around the practice facility, and her reliable sense of déjà vu betrays her.
If it's not the five new players – four freshmen and a transfer, including imports from England, Denmark and Austria – it's the two new assistant coaches, brought to her because Hosch lost her two previous assistants: Michelle Winkler and Margo Dionisio. Both departed for head coaching jobs; Winkler to Cal State Northridge and Dionisio to UC Irvine.
"I have my own coaching tree going on now," Hosch joked.
And yet, while change is the one constant in life, never mind the life of a college golf coach, Hosch can look around her CSF team and see a familiar dynamic. She sees the one thing she goes out of her way to foster when recruiting: the lack of drama.
Once again, Hosch managed – at least in the early going – to build a team that actually resembles a team and not a future episode of "The Real Golfing Housewives of Fill In The Blank."
"I know this is a cliché, but we are a great family," Hosch said. "Because everyone is from a different country, it makes us closer as a team. They're all kind of dealing with the same thing, so they can relate to each other more. It's really cool to see our local players help out the players who don't have cars, offering them rides.
"You hear about all these other teams going through different things culturally and dynamically, and I don't deal with any of that. Maybe we're in the honeymoon stage, getting to know each other, but we don't have any issues. Now, if we can just take the time other teams spend with drama and figure out how to get better."
That's Hosch's other constant: the quest to find that edge that puts the Titans firmly and permanently in the upper echelon of the Big West Conference. She thought she was there last year, coming into the spring with a solid nucleus that should have pushed its way into the title mix.
Instead, Hosch was blindsided by a midseason defection from her No. 3 golfer, Kayla Sam, who suddenly decided she didn't want to play golf anymore. Sam's absence meant Hosch had to replace her third-best golfer with her sixth-best. You don't have to be a golf coaching savant to see where this was going.
"We were dead smack in the middle of the pack," Hosch said. "We got to (the) conference (tournament) and there was no chance we would move up and no chance we would drop. There was no emotion. None. There was something I learned in coaching that there are times where you might not have the best-performing team, but it's important to make sure as a coach and as a team, you enjoy what you're doing. One thing we made sure was, 'Were we playing our best golf?' Not really. 'But were we enjoying our time together?' Absolutely."
"… In order to keep our sanity, we had to change our expectations. We changed our goals and strived for other things from the season. You can't expect the team to put goals on the board that are unrealistic."
Flip the calendar to 2022-23, and the beauty of being a golf coach is Hosch gets to reset her goals. She gets to flip that switch courtesy of nearly a whole new team. Of Fullerton's eight players, only senior Elina Saksa and junior Linley Ooi returned. Both are among the top five players who travel to tournaments.
A native of Finland, Saksa made the most of her first season at CSF after transferring from UNLV. She won one tournament and racked up three top-10s in 10 events. Her 75.54 scoring average should drop this season as she puts acclimation behind her.
"Last year, she struggled a little bit balancing academics and her transfer," Hosch said. "She had a lot on her plate. I don't know what's been the biggest change, but she's enjoying herself this year. She's excited to go to tournaments, excited to practice."
Ooi returns after dropping her scoring average from 78 in the fall to 74 in the spring. Hosch said that was because the Australian put in the work, never going a day without touching a club.
"We haven't seen her ceiling yet," Hosch said.
Speaking of a limitless ceiling, that brings us to Hosch's United Nations trio of freshmen: Davina Xanh from England, Kajsa Landstrom from Denmark and Katharina Zeilinger from Austria. And Xanh is the logical starting point since she is already the Titans' No. 1 player.
In her first three college tournaments, Xanh has a win, a T3 that included a second-round 66, and a T11 that included a final-round 71 that vaulted her 10 spots on the leaderboard. This, after Xanh finished second in the English Women's Amateur Championship, losing on the last hole of the match-play format 1 up.
"Davina is so stoic. She doesn't get hyped up or excited. She doesn't get too mad or sad," Hosch said. "When I was recruiting her, I couldn't tell if she was interested. I liked her, but I didn't know her. Once she had her official visit and I got to know her more, it makes sense. It all now makes sense who she is and how she is on the golf course. That's why she's so good at what she does."
Hosch said Landstrom is still in that acclimation stage, but she comes in averaging 71 over a full slate of summer tournaments in her native Denmark.
As for Zeilinger, Hosch marvels at what she brings to the course – and elsewhere.
"I've never seen a player this disciplined in my life," Hosch said. "We had a tee time early in Idaho. We left our Airbnb at 6:30 a.m. and she'd already run two to three miles before anyone woke up. I asked her how school is going and she said, 'I did all my homework before we left.' That never happens. She is the most disciplined player I've ever coached in my entire life."
The fact Saksa, Xanh, Landstrom and Zeilinger all play for their country's respective national teams shows Hosch did her homework as well. You have to be one of the top 10 players in your country to make a national team.
Hosch did her homework with one other player: Elyse Kim, a transfer from Quinnipiac in Connecticut. Hosch warned the California native that she may not make the traveling squad. Kim responded by figuring out her driver issues, making the traveling squad for the Titans' most recent event in Washington and shooting a final-round 73.
All this change is a constant and there's a certainty to the uncertainty that goes beyond hiring former LPGA player Michelle Piyapattra as one of her assistants. Hosch has seen what can happen when déjà vu goes in the rearview mirror.
"That's what happens in college golf because you only need five players to travel," she said. "You have a bunch of seniors and when they graduate, you have a whole new team and it looks like success overnight. You can be really good all of a sudden. I've seen that in other schools in our conference. You lose a few players and swap them out with new ones and all of a sudden, you have a pretty good team."
Did you know…? First-year assistant coach Michelle Piyapattra is a graduate of Columbia University who owns eight top-10 finishes on the Epson Tour, the developmental tour for the LPGA. Piyapattra won the Ivy League conference tournament by 10 shots as a freshman, was the Ivy League Player of the Year as a sophomore and a three-time All-Ivy selection. She's also won twice on the Canadian Tour. "I can't believe I landed her," Hosch said.
She said it: Hosch on where the Titans are now: "I have yet to take my best five to a tournament. I don't feel like I've picked the top five yet. I've changed it up pretty much, but as long as we figure out the formula before conference play starts (in the spring), that's all we really need."