Northwestern began its spring season Sunday in Puerto Rico with one of its strongest teams in recent memory.
Leading the way this year will be Dillon Dougherty, who reached the U.S. Amateur Finals over the summer and was invited to play at this year’s Masters Tournament, one of the most illustrious tournaments in all of golf, on April 6-9.
At the U.S. Amateur Sectional Qualifiers, Dougherty made the finals, but he wasn’t NU’s top finisher. That title goes to junior Chris Wilson, who shot a pair of 66s to win the qualifier. Dougherty finished second with a two-round score of 140.
Wilson also won the 99th Ohio Amateur Championship in July, arguably the state’s top amateur event, an event previously won by Arnold Palmer and British Open winner Ben Curtis.
Also during the summer, sophomore Kyle Moore won the 49th Eastern Amateur Golf Tournament, setting a new tournament record of 13-under.
In the fall, four of NU’s five players finished in the top 10 of a tournament. Moore just missed finishing in the top 10 with his 11th place finish at the CordeValle Collegiate.
“This is the deepest team we’ve ever had at Northwestern,” coach Pat Goss said. “We’ve never had a team with better players at the three, four and five positions.”
Competing in a tournament for the first time in four months is never easy, especially when that tournament just happens to contain the toughest competition the team will face all season. Luckily for the Cats, the Puerto Rico Classic, their first tournament of the spring, will feel more like their third tournament than their first.
Unlike past years, when the team was relegated to practicing indoors all winter, the team got the opportunity to play two competitive matches over the past month.
“I think it helps a bunch,” junior David Merkow said. “I’ve been inside making things look better, but being out on the course forces you to think more about getting the ball in the hole than about swing appearance, which is really what golf boils down to.”
NU competed in an alumni match as well as a match against Northern Illinois, both of which were in Florida. As a result, the Cats, ranked 13th in Golf World’s men’s coaches’ poll, are more optimistic about their expectations for their first tournament.
The 18-team field at the Puerto Rico Classic features the top five ranked teams in Golf World’s men’s coaches’ poll: Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Florida and Duke.
“We are better prepared than we have been the past few years, but it’s tough because this is the best field we will play all year,” coach Pat Goss said.
Despite facing such stiff competition, Goss just expects to get a benchmark as to where his team stands and is not overly concerned with how it does in the first tournament.
“We are only going to be judged on how we do at the end of the year,” he said.
The tournament, which began Sunday, will wrap up on Tuesday. After Sunday’s first round, the Cats were tied for eighth place with No. 3 Oklahoma State. Merkow led Northwestern with a 1-under 71, good for 22nd place.
In the fall, the Cats won the 14-team Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge on October 3-4, with Merkow winning individually. The team finished second at the Coca-Cola Duke Golf Classic on Oct. 9-10 and the CordeValle Collegiate on Oct. 31-Nov. 1, both of which were 15-team fields. In its other two tournaments, the team finished sixth out of 20 and 10th out of 15.
“I think we did good, not great,” Goss said. “We showed some flashes of brilliance but we also showed some inconsistencies. It was successful, but my hope is that it was just a glimpse of who we will be.”
The Cats’ goals are to win the Big Ten Championships on April 28-30 and reach the final day of the NCAA championships with a chance to win. Last season, the Cats finished third in the Big Ten championships and did not qualify for the NCAA championships.
“As a team I don’t think there’s anything we can’t do,” Dougherty said. “We finished the fall ranked 14th and haven’t even nearly reached our potential.”
Reach Michael Schlossberg at [email protected].
