Golf would probably be a much easier game if every hole was 20 feet wide and just as deep.
Northwestern finds itself in that kind of hole in terms of qualifying for the postseason after finishing 11th out of 14 teams at the Purdue Boilermaker Invitational on Sunday.
Head coach Pat Goss has repeatedly stressed the need to place highly in every tournament leading up to next weekend’s Big Ten championships. The Wildcats must finish third or better to avoid disqualification from the NCAA Championships after finishing behind all six conference teams in the tournament last weekend.
That does not mean that if they finish third this weekend they are in. Only conference champions are guaranteed a berth, while the rest of the 81-team field is chosen by a committee. So in order to ensture a berth the Cats must win.
“It’s going to be important for us to not lose focus of what our goal has been all along this year, and that’s to win the Big Ten tournament,” said senior Dan Doyle. “If we win, we get an automatic berth and we’ve totally earned our spot.”
Doyle was the lone bright spot for NU over the weekend, as he rebounded from playing poorly in previous tournaments to finish fifth in the individual standings. But even after shooting all three rounds under par, including a final round 4-under 68, Doyle still found himself nine shots out of the lead.
“A lot of guys seemed to shoot some pretty low numbers this week, so I was kind of disappointed to lose by as many (strokes) as I did,” Doyle said. “But at the same time I can’t be upset with shooting three rounds in a row under par.”
The Cats found themselves locked into 11th place, twelve strokes behind ninth place Iowa and Iowa State after a 36-hole first day in which they shot identical rounds of 8-over 296. As it has done in past tournaments, NU hit the gas in the final round, shooting an 8-under 280, the third best round of the tournament.
Still, the gap between NU and Iowa was too big. The Cats remained two shots behind the 10th-place Hawkeyes.
Even though the final standings did not show it, Doyle still believes the team is on the same level as any school it has played. The Cats’ blazing last round at West Lafayette, Ind., certainly helps Doyle’s case.
“I swear we’re just as good as any of the teams that are finishing ahead of us,” Doyle said.
The poor finish will probably linger in the team’s collective minds until they tee off at the Big Ten Championships, where Doyle said they can wipe away the bitter taste from the Boilermaker Invitational for good.
“If we play to our potential, and we’ve got another great chance to do so this week, then all that can be forgotten,” Doyle said.
