Gerrod Chadwell & Co. carry winning ways to 'The Bear Brawl' in Waco

Key notes from Gerrod Chadwell interview

• We've had a really good fall. It's going fast, but it feels like Pebble Beach was last year, even though it was a month and a half ago. We've won multiple times in different fashions, and that's good to see. We're learning about them, and we still have room to get better, which is the exciting part.
   
• Most coaches would say that we try to know our team better than anybody else. By being around them to see our struggles early in the week, we identified them and gave them a heads up as to what our challenge would be. We played 36 holes to give ourselves a chance on Monday, and a cold front came through. The conditions switched, which made us play a different way. We kept our pedal down, and the back nine is what sealed the deal for us.
   
• We had our fundraiser two weeks ago, and the young ladies had to introduce something. Cayetana Fernández García-Poggio was the first one up, and I said I could always count on her. You're starting to see what everyone thought she was when she came in. As a junior, when everything is on the line, you're going to get her best.
   
• The later holes are the toughest part of the golf course at 10, 11, 12 and 13. We played 16, 17 and 18 marvelously. Vanessa Borovilos and García-Poggio both had a chance to win. The course was so spread out, and the Florida State coach told me congratulations when there was still so much golf left to play. In team golf, so much can happen when you're counting team scores on every hole, but a one-shot win is still a win.
   
• Sky Sudberry played as an individual, and she had a great week. She was almost a top-15 finisher. She has been in and out of the lineup, but she'll be a big factor moving forward. It's great to have that competitive depth. We're qualifying today for Baylor after a team win, and it's going to make us better.
   
• We had a long team meeting about how you can get better and learn through a win. I'm not sure we've beaten anybody yet. The fields we've seen are similar, and our spring schedule is really challenging. We have a lot of ways to get better, and it's tough to get it done when you're the team that's supposed to win.
   
• Borovilos is putting herself in a position to win a tournament on the back nine every week. She played well at San Marcos, but she didn't putt very well. Her growth and maturity in how she handled those moments speak well about where she's going. She can really play some golf.
   
• We'll play on Tuesday at Ridgewood in Waco. It's a host site for the NCAA regional, which is where we'll need to play well to go to the national championship. It'll be a preview of that course, and all nine ladies will go with us and compete.
   
• Maybe it's just little things. We don't have to change things to get better with this group. I'm looking for little coachable moments because our group is still coachable. Everything is so transactional in this world, but we're still an educational institution. As long as we have jobs, we're still teaching and coaching. We have a group that's willing to learn, listen and encourage each other. We want to fan that into flames, and hopefully that carries into the spring as we try to play for something much bigger than the Jim West Challenge come April or May.