One more fairway. One more solid drive. One more putt.
Any of those could have helped Northwestern force a playoff at the NCAA Central Regional at Notre Dame last weekend. Instead the Wildcats finished in a tie for sixth place, one stroke short of fifth-place LSU and one place shy of punching their ticket to the NCAA National Championships.
“It’s pretty bothersome,” sophomore Eric Chun said. “You look back and ask yourself what you could’ve done better. There were at least two or three strokes I know I could’ve saved. We had our opportunity, but we came up a bit short.”
Chun finished in a tie for 22nd place with teammate Josh Dupont, and the Cats were led by junior David Lipsky, who took 11th for his seventh top-20 finish of the year. Senior Jonathan Bowers closed out his NU career with a 10-over 220, good for a 52nd-place tie with sophomore Sam Chien.
Coach Pat Goss said his team needed a better overall effort over the weekend, which brought an abrupt end to NU’s season.
“We need to work on closing out tournaments,” Goss said. “The talent is there, but without the right frame of mind, we can’t achieve the success we’re after.”
The Cats got off to a good start Thursday, as Dupont led NU with an opening round 67 to propel the team to fifth place. The team continued its strong play Friday in the second round, charging to third place in the standings when severe weather halted play before the Cats could complete their rounds.
“When we had to stop play, it seemed to knock the guys out of rhythm,” Goss said. “Had we finished out that round, maybe we would’ve been able to maintain that momentum, but we need to handle that type of situation more strongly in the future.”
The rain seemed to douse the Cats’ red-hot play, leading to a final round team score of 5-over 285 to finish at 8-over 848, in a sixth-place tie with Michigan and Iowa. Stanford, Florida State, Florida, Duke and LSU rounded out the top five finishers to advance to the National Championships.
With the season coming to an end, the team looks forward to next year, which will feature a roster with four of five regular starters returning, including two former Big Ten individual champions in Chun and Lipsky.
“Those guys can be dominant on the course, but we’ll be looking for them to be even stronger.” Goss said. “Lipsky is the type of player with All-American potential, and he needs to perform that way throughout the year, not just during the spring schedule.”
With the sixth-place finish at the Regional tournament, the Cats closed out a spring that included top-half finishes at all seven of their tournaments, leaving room for optimism about what’s to come.
“We proved this year we can play with any school in the country,” Chun said. “This season didn’t end the way we wanted, but we’ll learn how to deal with it and build off it for next year.”[email protected]
