Senior business finance major Alex Schies made history over the weekend by becoming a four-time Sooner Athletic Conference Player of the Year.

Schies won her second consecutive SAC Individual Championship while leading the Rams to their first conference on April 22, according to ramsports.net. It was the eighth career tournament victory for the three-time 1st-team NAIA All-American.

In nine tournaments this season, Schies has finished in the top five seven times; this includes four wins, according to ramsports.net. She won back-to-back tournaments on two separate occasions.

Schies has been honing her golf skills since she was young.

“I have played golf since I was three years old, but I didn’t start playing in tournaments and start caring until I was 13 years old,”she said.

While playing for Wesleyan, Schies has made several important memories.

“I have a lot of favorite memories, but my absolute favorite has to be the team winning the Sooner Athletic Conference Championship,” Schies said. “I’ve never seen the team nor coach so excited and happy as when we won. When I was on the final green and had one putt left, I could just tell by what I could hear the team saying that we must’ve had a lead regardless of what I did on that last putt.”

Schies credited head golf coach Kevin Millikan for her success at Wesleyan.

“Coach Millikan never once was concerned if I had a bad round or my practice rounds weren’t going the way qualifying had gone all week,” Schies said. “He would never put anything negative into my head and that helped me stay positive no matter the circumstances.”

Millikan said he has known Schies for “about five years now.”

“I met her when she was a junior in high school,” he said. “She is by far one of the hardest working people that I know on the golf course. She’s also one of the toughest people that I’ve ever known. I’ve never known anyone whose played through more injury or illness or adverse conditions.”

Teammate Trudy Allen said Schies is a “very motivated player.”

“She practices before our team practices, which I’m not sure how she does it but she gets done what she needs to get done,” Allen said.

Schies pointed out some of the highlights the season and was really proud of the team.

“The final season of my college career has had more happen than I could have ever asked for,” she said. “I have won four tournaments individually this season, and we won four tournaments as a team including conference. All four years, I’ve wanted us to win conference as a team and we finally did it.

“I owe a huge thanks to the team and coach because without them we wouldn’t have been this successful this year. Golf is both team and individual, so there’s no way we could’ve won so many tournaments this year just because of one person.”

Schies said kids wanting to have successful golf careers should make sure to stay passionate about the sport.

“A big thing with golf and kids getting started in it is parents get too involved,” Schies said. “I was lucky and fortunate my parents trusted me to do my own thing and practice. Some parents get involved at a young age wanting their kids to be ‘the next big thing’ and it ruins it for them, so by their junior and senior years in high school instead of looking at college to golf at, they’re getting burned out and uninterested. So basically, don’t let your parents ruin something good.”

Schies said she has big goals for her future.

“Right now, I am planning on getting my master’s and being the assistant coach for the women’s golf team here,” she said. “The rest, we will just see what happens.”
Schies said she isn’t dead set on coaching, but she could see it in her future.

“I will see over the next year or so,” she said. “Coaching long term isn’t really something I see in my future, but who knows, I might end up wanting to be a golf instructor or something. ”

The Lady Rams will participate in the NAIA National Championship at PGA National in Florida on May 22-25. For more information go to ramsports.net.