Ah, the last quarter of senior year. The loss of motivationcombined with the panic of finding a job makes for an interesting10 weeks.
Now add three hours of golf practice to each day and four daysof travel to each week, and it’s the life of Northwestern women’sgolfer Elizabeth Burden.
“I’d just like to finish strong and feel good when I leaveNorthwestern about how I played and the effort I put into it,” shesaid.
With each swing, the psychology major is coming closer to theend of her career at NU and the beginning of post-collegiate life.This weekend she will head to the Purdue Boilermaker Tournament inWest Lafayette, Ind., with the rest of the Cats.
“I am looking to play better and set my standards higher,” shesaid. “All of us have gotten used to not playing to ourcapabilities.”
Burden has been NU’s top finisher in five out of seventournaments this season. She began her senior year with threeconsecutive top-15 finishes, and after the winter hiatus, sheplaced third at the Central District Classic on Feb. 25 in Parrish,Fla.
But then Burden met the Cats’ worst enemy: bad weather.
Cold and rainy weather has not only prevented the Cats frompracticing outside, but it also followed them down to Texas fortheir past two tournaments. Burden admits she doesn’t play well inbad conditions and has been disappointed with her recentperformances.
“You have good days and bad days,” she said. “I don’t feel likeI’m playing badly in general or that there is anything wrong withmy game, it’s just not being able to play outside consistentlybecause of weather conditions.”
Burden, ranked 13th in the Big Ten, isn’t the only NU swingerlooking to fine-tune her skills this weekend.
“We are going to focus a little more on the team this weekend,but in order to achieve our team goals everyone has to do theirpart individually,” NU coach Chris Regenberg. “There have been somegood rounds, but there haven’t been performances where the sameindividual puts together three rounds in a row.”
In the past three tournaments, the Cats have had a differentleader for each round. Inconsistency has plagued NU all season, andin the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational on March 23-25 a differentgolfer led the team each day. With a fourth golfer ending thetournament for the top score on the team.
Regenberg chalks the unpredictable play up to a lack of outdoorplaying time, but is confident the Cats will perform well thisweekend.
“We are getting into the part of the season now where our hardwork and our effort should pay off,” she said. “And we just have totrust that those things will come through this weekend.”
