Northwestern is looking to capture the luck of the Irish this weekend. Fortunately for the Wildcats, they’ve already found it once.
NU hopes to extend its season as it competes in the NCAA Central Regional at Warrren Golf Course in South Bend, Ind. The Cats are familiar with this course, as they won the Notre Dame Spring Invitational there in 2008.
“If I had had a choice of where we’d wind up for Regionals, this is the course I would’ve picked,” coach Pat Goss said. “But it’s still going to play pretty difficult this weekend. Any past successes we’ve had here aren’t a totally reliable indicator of how we might do.”
The Cats earned the program’s 25th postseason berth, taking the No. 9 seed at the Notre Dame Regional at Warren. It is the same seed NU had last year at the Oklahoma Regional. There the Cats tied for fourth and qualified for their first NCAA Championship appearance since 2006.
Out of a highly competitive field of 14 teams that includes Stanford, Florida, Iowa, Michigan and Indiana, NU hopes to finish in the top five in order to advance to the NCAA National Championships for the second straight year.
“We’re in the right place mechanics-wise to play here,” said Goss, who has guided the Cats to postseason play in 11 of his 14 years at the helm. “We can compete. Now it’s a matter of keeping that focus and concentration headed into the tournament.”
The Cats look to keep their spring momentum going after a nearly three-week layoff since last playing at the Big Ten Championships, where they won third place as a team while junior All-Big Ten First Team member David Lipsky took home first place individually.
“It was nice to have a little bit of a break from golf,” sophomore Eric Chun said. “I took about three full days off from golf, just to recharge. Every now and then you need to do that to feel fresh mentally, and to keep the game fun.”
Still, NU’s break between tournaments was anything but leisurely. Just one week after the Big Ten Championships, Chun traveled to South Korea to participate in a professional event on the Asian Tour. Earlier this week, team members split up and competed across the country in U.S. Open qualifying events.
“I was glad we got that chance to stay fresh competitively,” Goss said. “Staying in that mindset is vital entering this weekend’s tournament, and those tune-ups helped out a lot.”
The Cats found that mindset before at Warren, which will bode well for the team this weekend. At the 2008 Notre Dame Spring Invitational, then-sophomore Lipsky shot a tournament-low 1-under 139, taking co-medalist honors.
“It’s not an extremely tough course,” Chun said. “Depending on pin positions, it’s going to be important for us to be patient and hit fairways and greens. It can really play to our strengths.”
Goss remained cautiously optimistic about Warren.
With that in mind, he said his team is well equipped to be a force this weekend.
“There’s no reason we can’t go out there and win,” he said. “For as long as I’ve been coaching, this team is peaking entering the postseason as much as any one I’ve been a part of.”
