Kim & Ziegler recovering from back injury and may play in the Pac 10 Championship

An exciting development for the Stanford Cardinal is that two seniors and former All-Americans Sihwan Kim and Steve Ziegler may be healthy enough to return to the team lineup. Sihwan has had the more serious back issues that have produced irregular participation in team qualifying tournaments and prevented his travel for multiple events this season.  Sihwan's best event of this 2010-11 season was a 6th place at the Gifford Collegiate at Cordevalle last November but otherwise.

Team trainer Tomoo Yamada reports that “Sihwan strained his lower back  and we have been slowly strengthening his back muscles to provide more stability to prevent from restraining the back as he retunes his game.  We are carefully evaluating his returning date. As of April 22nd, his back is responding well and given what Sihwan has done in the past weeks, we expect to see him on the golf course soon”.

Steve Ziegler tweaked his back before the last event at Pasatiempo and he missed his first event of the year.  He reports his back is improving and although it has given him trouble in recent months he is hopeful that it will allow him to play at the important Pac 10 championship.  Steve was a 2nd team All-American and member of the US Porter Cup team in 2009 and has been a key starter throughout his wonderful Stanford career.

Coaches Ray and Rowe report that  "we are excited that team captain Steve is likely to be able to play and that there is an outside chance that  Sihwan may be able to tee it up for the Cardinal on the big stage of the Pac 10 Conference Championship. This is the time of year when there is great opportunity as the stakes get ramped up for the top ranked teams."  

Sihwan reportedly is almost at the point where he is healthy enough to hit his full range of shots and when that is combined with his phenomenal short game ability then his potential inclusion in the lineup is certainly an exciting development.  Sihwan was a first team All-American as a freshman after winning the US Junior Amateur championship at the Olympic Club.

 Let's see what happens!