By: Kaitlyn Grady and Judaea Ingram
Sandhya Vaikuntam always had dreams of playing Division I golf. She now leads the Quinnipiac Women’s golf team as the only captain. She became captain of the team as a junior, which for her was a goal and it meant filling the shoes of the team captains who came before her.
When Vaikuntam started at Quinnipiac, she was the only freshman in her class. Her leadership, performance on the course and work ethic all won her the support of her teammates and coaches enough to be elected captain over other seniors on the team.
Vaikuntam and the Bobcats are just starting their spring season and are looking to regain control of the MAAC. She knows that she can help lead the young team and help them balance their duties on the fairways and in the classroom while still remembering to enjoy what they are doing. Vaikuntam sat down with QUSportsPage to discuss her journey with golf, how the golf team is building chemistry, and their goals for the spring season.
Q: How did you get into golf?
Vaikuntam: I started playing golf when I was about ten years old. My dad played, but I got into it mostly because one of our really close family friends, she had a golf lesson one day and I went with her. I thought it was really cool and her coach ended up being my first coach. He was really nice and he really kind of sparked that first point of love for me and for the game. Just through getting to know him and seeing her do it, I wanted to give it a try as well.
Q: Was golf the only sport you played?
Vaikuntam: I played basketball pretty heavily, that was my main sport before golf. So it was very, very different going from a team sport to an individual sport. I liked that golf was individual, and I stuck with it from there.
Q: When did you realize your play could translate to Division I?
Vaikuntam: There was always a hope for me to do play Division I, just internally with me. I knew of when a lot of people were talking about how many women’s golf scholarships in the division one space were going to waste and right when my year came around is when recruiting really got tough. It was right after COVID. A lot of coaches were keeping a lot of their rosters full from years previous and not really recruiting very much. So it was a leap of faith for me. The recruiting process was tough. I didn’t know if I was gonna land a spot or where I would land the spot. But it was always just a big goal of mine to strive to be a division one student athlete and throughout high school I really put in the work to get there and ended up here.
Q: You’re in your junior year and you’re a team captain, what was that like when you heard the news?
Vaikuntam: I was really happy. It was another goal of mine. I had come in as the only freshman, so I’m the only one in my class on the team. I became really close with the seniors my freshman year, they took me under their wing, especially Leanne, who was my team captain the past two years. She helped me develop my leadership skills and my own way. I really was forced to find my own voice on the team because I didn’t have anybody else to lean on. It gave me an outlet to showcase my leadership skills, even as a freshman. A really big goal of mine was to take a leadership position on the team, even if it wasn’t with the title of captain. So, I was over the moon that Coach trusted me with the position and I hope I’m doing him proud so far.
Q: What are the duties of team captain?
Vaikuntam: Golf is not traditionally a team sport, so a lot of my responsibilities rely on team chemistry and making sure that the girls really do understand that we are a team. So in the lift room, uplifting everybody, organizing team dinners and making sure that the girls’ voices are heard. I’m kind of the bridge between coach and our team. I hear what coach has to say and I hear what the girls have to say, and I try to relay it to both as much as possible so that everybody’s on the same page.
Because we are a smaller team, news travel is very fast around us, so we wanna make everybody is on the same page and that everybody’s being heard. Also all the stuff that comes with that is organizing, so handling all the schedules for the teams for our practice schedules, making sure that everybody is accommodated for, so its kind of the traditional stuff, but also a lot heavily on relation building.
Q: How have you built team chemistry on the team?
Vaikuntam: We do a lot of team dinners as much as possible, we try to. It’s hard because everybody schedule doesn’t really line up very well, but we’ve been able to have a couple of fun team dinners.
We went to the Haunted Trail in October for Halloween. fun. We took Coach Meg who was our strength coach with us and, you know, coach refused to come in, but he was in the van. So that was a really fun thing that we did.
We try to do small activities like that that really give us a chance to get to know each other outside of the sport. I think it is incredibly important. We do spend a lot of time together just in our everyday life. After lift, we usually have team breakfast. We see each other throughout the day passing through. We try to do as much fun activities as possible.
Q: What did you guys take away from the fall portion of the season?
Vaikuntam: The fall season was great for us because we have five freshmen on the teams, so it was really an opportunity for us to see what everybody can do. This year, I’d say more than the past two years that I’ve been here, the team is extremely close in our abilities. So on any given day, any given person can be having the best day, so it really pushes our team to put in the work and fight for our spots on the roster when we do go to tournaments because only some of us travel. So it gave us a really good opportunity to kind of see the layout of the team and how everything is going to go for the spring. It also developed that competitive mentality we had in the fall and bringing it into the spring. The fall really gave us a good showing of the potential that we have there.
Q: What are some of your routines for a tournament?
Vaikuntam: When I go to an away tournament, I’m an extreme overpacker. We have outfits lined out for each day so that we’re all matching together, but I overpack. But on the golf course, I’m very methodical in my shot process, so I have a whole routine for each shot, but I’ve learned over the years that golf is a very mental game. I believe it’s 80% mental and 20% ability most times. So, I try to keep it as light as possible in between shots, so sometimes I am striking up conversation with the people in my group or singing a song in my head and not thinking about my score for the entire round, and really take it one shot at a time.
Q: How are you carrying the loss from the conference championship last season into this season?
Vaikuntam: Last year would have been a four-peat for us, so that loss renewed the energy, the competitiveness, and the fight in us that everybody’s willing to really put in the work to get there. We had a lot of seniors that left last year and they had a lot of success in their time here. We’ve won three conference championships in the recent years, so the girls, especially the freshmen, know how much this team can do and the ability of the team and they’re just as eager as we are to get back into that position and carry that championship again for our program.
Q: You just finished the Columbia Classic, what can you take away from your first event for the rest of the season?
Vaikuntam: We don’t have another tournament until spring break, so it is a little less than a month out from our next tournament. We broke off the rust a little bit at our past tournament and learning what mistakes we made on the course that we can do better in the future. Maybe somebody wasn’t feeling good at that tournament, so preparations for the week upcoming to the next tournament are gonna be changed a little bit, so just as minor changes. As a team, it went smoothly from a whole operation standpoint, but since it’s an individual sport, everybody kind of knows what they need to work on. Our team mindset going into all of our tournaments is that we want to be at our best and compete at our highest level.
Q: As a Division I golfer, what is it like for you to mini golf?
Vaikuntam: I always say that golfers make the worst mini golfers, but maybe that’s just me. In my past experience, every time I go, my friends who have never picked up a golf club before, always beat me. I think it’s because I’m thinking about it a little too much from my habits, so I make a pretty bad mini golfer, but I still enjoy it. And they tease me about it all the time.
Q: What do you do outside of golf?
Vaikuntam: I spend a lot of time with my friends. I try to do as many small adventures as possible. After last year, I have tried to find that balance between doing stuff outside and doing stuff in here as much as I can. I’m just trying to keep it as fun as possible, and I always take my teammates with me if I can. The freshmen don’t have cars, so I try to like, you know, get them out a little bit because I know for me as a freshman, I was just stuck in my dorm.
This past weekend a few of us went to the Yale Peabody Museum and then we went to lunch and just had a fun little weekend.
Q: How have you seen yourself improve from freshman to junior year?
Vaikuntam I just learned how to kind of function here. It was a big change. A lot of us are far from home and I’m across the country, so it really forced me to be a lot more independent. I’ve really just grown into this team a little bit. Being captain has really given me the ability to know all of my teammates on a deeper personal level and find ways to bring us all together. It’s been a very enriching experience. I’ve grown a lot since freshman year, especially under the guidance of Leanne the past two years. She has really helped me out and put me in a position where I can lead and be a captain of this team.