Parsons girls rock the greens

The Parsons twins, Haley and Mandy, insist they have different golf games.

The fraternal twin daughters of Penne and former Gonzaga University baseball standout and major leaguer Casey Parsons look alike. They talk alike. They even score alike.

But they’re different.

Really. They are.

“Our swings are totally different,” Mandy said. “But we know each other so well that we go to one another when we’re having trouble. We’ve always been able to help each other figure out what we’re doing wrong.”

“Our games are different,” Haley said. “We’re not the same off the tee. We have to manage the course differently.”

Both were four-year starters for University High School, both were named team captain for their junior and senior seasons and each was a mainstay on the All-Greater Spokane League first-team. Each accepted a golf scholarship to Washington State, where each has sat out a year: Mandy as a freshman, Haley as a sophomore.

They admit they have an uncanny knack for the same predicament.

“It is kind of spooky,” Haley said. “We’ll go out and play in two different foursomes, but when we come back and compare our rounds, we’ve been in the same trouble spots on the course. I’ll tell her about some horrible lie I hit into and she’ll go ‘Oh, wow – I was there, too.’ ”

And there’s still the matter of their results.

The redshirt juniors rarely finish more than a stroke apart. For example, at the Washington State Amateur Golfing Association Women’s Amateur Championship in Sequim, Wash., the Parsons sisters finished with identical 54-hole scores of 245 to tie for seventh.

The twins competed in last week’s PNGA Women’s Amateur Championship at Meadow Springs Country Club in Richland. Haley lost her opening round match, 2 up, to Marli Mikuelecky of Osoyoos, B.C. Mandy needed 20 holes to get past Sarah Jane Ababa of the Philippines, but lost a heartbreaker to Oregon State’s Lauren Archer, carding birdies on 14, 15 and 17 to erase a three-hole deficit only to lose when Black holed a five-footer on 18.

At Pullman, the pair’s scores remain close. Mandy averages 81 strokes per 18 holes; Haley just over 82.

“Okay,” Mandy admitted. “That is strange. But it’s always been like that.”

“I don’t think our transition to college golf has gone quite the way we would have liked,” Haley said. “But I think we’ve improved our game and we’ll continue to improve.”

The Cougar coaching staff already has accomplish one thing their father, who also graduated from U-Hi, could not: get his daughters into the weight room.

“Our dad tried to get us into lifting weights when we were in high school, but we were like ‘Are you kidding?’ ” Haley laughed. “We’re really not that big (Mandy is 5-foot-5; Haley 5-6) and we’re not all that strong.”

But, she said, golf courses in the GSL never required strength off the tee.

The college game, however, is different. The courses play longer, and collegiate women tee-off from the back tees.

“Being long off the tee is much more important in college,” Mandy explained. “The courses are significantly longer, so unless you get a lot of distance off the tee, your game has to adjust. In high school, I could usually go to my 8- or 9-iron for my second shot and that’s the strength of my game.

“In college, I’m having to hit my second shot with a 5-, a 6- or a 7-iron.”

“Or else I’m hitting a fairway wood with my second shot,” Haley said. “I sometimes wonder if I even need to pack my short-irons.”

Hitting the weight room has helped. Mandy said she’s added 15 yards off the tee.

“Oh, she’s lying,” Haley laughed. “Maybe 10 yards.”

Both sisters are eager to get back to Pullman. When they rejoin their Cougar teammates for the fall season, they’ll have a brand-new 18-hole golf course on which to hone their game. Palouse Ridge Golf Club at Washington State University is scheduled to open Aug. 29.

For the first time, the Cougars will host a Pac-10 event at home.

“That’s going to make a big difference,” Mandy said. “We’ll be able to practice on the kind of course we play matches and tournaments on.”

“I’m excited about it,” Haley said. “We got the chance to play the first two holes last fall. It’s going to be a great course.”

The sisters are excited about their younger sister, Kaitlen, who placed fourth in the state Class 4A golf tournament as a sophomore in May.

“She has an advantage that we didn’t have,” Mandy said. “She started playing golf at about the same time we did. For us, that was as freshmen. For her, as a freshman, she had already been playing the game for quite a while.”

Like her older siblings, Haley insisted, Kaitlen’s game is different.

“I’ve been looking at her swing and I really don’t see any similarities between my swing or Mandy’s,” she said. “First of all, Kaitlen is left-handed, so everything is backward.

“Most of all, Kaitlen is her own person and she’s playing her game.”

Besides, she laughed, “she’s a teenager and you can’t tell them anything, anyway.”