‘Skin game’ has new meaning

The thought of missing her initial Big Sky Conference golf tournament wasn’t the first thing that raced through Chloe Nelson’s mind last week while she was hurtling, face first, toward the sidewalk while pinned to the pedals of her airborne bicycle.

At that point, trying to negotiate some kind of crash landing that didn’t involve broken bones was at the top of her to-do list.

But moments after cruelly kissing the unforgiving concrete, Nelson forced herself to look down at her mangled right hand and the blood drops falling from her chin. That’s when the Eastern Washington University freshman first considered the possibility of not competing in the season-ending tournament in Goodyear, Ariz.

“It was just two days before the tournament,” Nelson said while recalling her near-tragic bike wreck that took place on the EWU campus April 14 when she hit a curb while trying to avoid a puddle of standing water.

Nelson was running late that day and hurrying to catch the team van to practice when she flipped her bike. She recalled thinking, “Oh, God, I’ve played the whole season. This is the one tournament I’ve trained for, and now I’m not going to get to go? What is that?”

As it turned out, the 18-year-old Nelson, who signed with the Eagles last winter following an outstanding prep career at Silverado High School in Las Vegas, fought through the pain of her biking injuries and represented her school quite well in the annual assembly of Big Sky golf teams.

With her bruised and torn left hand heavily padded and wrapped, and the abrasion on her chin resembling a goatee, Nelson managed to scrape it around the 6,160-yard, par-72 Palms Course at the Palm Valley Golf Club for three days and post a 54-hole score of 223.

Her 7-over-par total was four shots off the winning score of 219 turned in by Montana’s Jasi Acharya and good enough for third place in the individual standings – the second-best finish by an Eastern golfer in the history of the tournament.

It also helped the Eagles place fourth as a team.

“It was just a matter of will,” EWU coach Marc Hughes said of Nelson’s effort, which included rounds of 75, 75 and 73. “She just willed her way around the golf course, and played very well.”

Nelson said the pain in her hand, coupled with some stiffness in her arms from a boxing class she had just started taking the previous week, kept her from making a full swing throughout the first two days of the tournament.

“I took out my sand wedge and took a couple of swings before my practice round and the pain just started shooting through my hand and arms,” she explained. “I wanted to stop after about 15 holes, but I convinced myself that I had to get through it, because I was going to have to play 18 holes the next day.”

Hughes said he considered not taking Nelson to the tournament after she arrived at practice following her accident.

“She showed up with Band-Aids all over her, and she was crying and shaking,” Hughes recalled. “I thought, ‘Great, here we go – right before the conference. This is just what we need!’ “

Upon seeing Nelson’s injuries, Hughes sent her directly to the school’s athletic trainer, who checked for broken bones or ligament damage.

“I was biting my tongue the whole time,” Nelson recalled, “saying, ‘No, that doesn’t hurt. It’s fine. I feel great.’ “

Once it was determined that the many cuts and bruises she suffered were the worst of Nelson’s injuries, Hughes made the decision to take her to Arizona.

“I told her she was just going to have to fight through this,” Hughes said. “That was our conversation: ‘You might have to manipulate your swing and change your game each day, but you’ve got to get through it.’ “

Using what she termed a “half-swing,” Nelson “bunted” the golf ball around the course for 36 holes, before the Advil she was taking kicked in. That allowed her to make a more natural approach at the ball during the final round of the tournament, when she shot 73 and equaled her best round as an EWU player.

“My statistics went from 10 greens (hit in regulation) on average to about five,” she said. “But at least I was able to get most of my approach shots close the green, which made it easier to get up and down.”

Nelson made nearly every putt.

“She’s always been a really good putter,” Hughes said of Nelson, whose stroke average of 79.2 tied sophomore Chelsey Lollar for lowest on the team this spring. “But even more important, she’s a grinder to the core.

“We have some girls on our team who are so physically gifted at hitting the golf ball, you think they should never be over par. Chloe’s not that way, but the thing about her is she never gives up the fight.

“And that, at the end of the day, is probably the best quality you can have in golf.”