After a mixed fall, Northwestern is finally finding its stride late in the spring season.
The Wildcats finished third at the Robert Kepler Intercollegiate Tournament in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and now coach Pat Goss is looking to maintain a higher level of play.
“Overall we played good golf,” Goss said. “But this is a tournament we could have won. I saw a lot of sloppy play, especially around the greens, that prevented us from winning. We need to eliminate that.”
Three Cats finished in the top ten as the team landed two strokes behind runner-up Penn State and four behind champion Eastern Michigan. The Cats have finished in the top five at all four of their competitions this spring.
Senior David Lipsky led NU, ending up in fourth place individually after shooting a 3-over 74 in the final round. His second round score of 67 was the lowest in tournament history, and his record helped him finish 1-under for the tournament. It was Lipsky’s third under-par finish of the spring.
“This is a course I know really well,” said Lipsky, who finished eleventh at Kepler last year when the Cats won the tournament. “That second round I was really on, but I didn’t finish as strongly as I would’ve liked to.”
Sophomore Eric Chun turned in another stellar individual performance Sunday, setting a career and final round record of 67. But after opening rounds of 73 and 76, his Sunday performance was only good enough for a seventh-place tie.
“We saw some good things from Eric,” Goss said. “But again, he needs to maintain focus. Our play was inconsistent this weekend. I saw some careless play around the greens that we’ll need to work on these next few weeks.”
Senior Jonathan Bowers tied Chun and Oklahoma’s Ben Blundell in seventh place, while junior Josh Dupont took seventeenth and sophomore Sam Chien took 33rd.
“We all have areas of our game we need to work on these next few weeks, particularly in the short game,” said Bowers, who rebounded from a tough start Sunday to go 4-under on the back nine. “The shots are there; at this point in the season we need to focus on eliminating the typical errors in our game, and concentrate on closing out tournaments.”
So far this spring, the Cats have had strong performances on the course after an inconsistent fall season. NU opened the spring by winning the Big Ten Match Play Championship before taking fourth out of fifteen teams at the Puerto Rico Classic and fifth in a field of 16 at the Barona Collegiate Cup. The Cats conclude regular season action in two weeks at the Boilermaker Invitational.
“We’re in a good spot right now, but it’s time to really sharpen up our game,” Goss said. “This is a team that can win the Big Ten. It’s time to start playing like it.”mitchellarmentrout2013@u.
