Last summer, ISU golfer Karly Pinder spent much of her time trying to earn a spot on the Canadian national amateur golf team. She recently found out that all of her hard work paid off.

Pinder was selected for the eight-person roster in August. A native of Exeter, Ontario, she is the only Cyclone golfer from Canada. Pinder said she is excited about the selection.

“It’s a good opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to it,” said Pinder, junior in marketing. “Obviously it won’t really come into effect until I get home next summer, but it will be awesome.”

ISU women’s golf coach Christie Martens was impressed with Pinder’s play as of late and also expressed her happiness about the selection.

“It’s obviously the biggest accomplishment in Canada,” Martens said. “Canada has a lot of great players. [The selection] was really exciting to see, and I’m so proud of her.”

Participants competed in a handful of tournaments throughout Canada last summer in hopes of securing a chance to represent their country. Pinder played well in all of them, including an impressive third-place finish in the Royale Cup National Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship. She also recorded two other top-10 finishes.

“She couldn’t have had a much better summer,” Martens said. “Obviously it’s a little different because she played in mostly Canadian events, so it’s a little bit hard to compare, but she definitely had the lowest scoring average [of all of our players]. She shot some rounds really consistently in the low 70s.”

A spot on the national team will not force her to make any sacrifices in collegiate play. All of the tournaments take place during the summer of 2007, which is the offseason for the Cyclone golfers.

Another perk of earning a spot on the team is the financial benefit that comes with it. As an amateur, Pinder isn’t usually allowed to accept any financial help from the university or her coaches when she plays in summer tournaments. While she’s competing with the national team, however, she is allowed to have all of her expenses paid by the team.

“They’ll be able to pay for all of her expenses, which will alleviate a lot of costs for her,” Martens said. “Most of our golfers, when they want to participate in tournaments in the summer, have to pay all of their expenses on their own. That will be really nice for her, and she’ll be competing at such a high level.”

As of now, Pinder is focused on the season at hand.

“I think this year we’ll have a really strong team,” she said. “We didn’t really lose any of our top players, so we have a lot of experience on our team. I think we’ll really be able to benefit from that.

Pinder helped the Cyclones to a seventh-place finish in their first tournament of the season, the Lady Badger Invitational in Madison, Wisc. She shot a 240 overall including a final round of 78. The individual finish was good for 31st overall. Although it’s a nice start to the season, Pinder has bigger things in mind.

“I think we should have a pretty good opportunity to finish in the top three in every tournament we compete in,” she said. “I think if we can do that, we’ll set ourselves up for a good standing in the spring.”