Men’s Golf

As has been the case on numerous occasions this spring, Northwestern has once again been left to ponder what could have been after narrowly missing out on a top-notch finish.

The Wildcats finished seventh in a 14-team field at the Big Ten Championships in Newburgh, Indiana, over the weekend, a mere 4 shots out of third place and 2 shots out of fifth. The slim defeat was difficult to swallow for several members of the team, who had high hopes after a stellar top-three showing at The Boilermaker last week.

“Just sitting there on Sunday and watching all those scores roll in and realizing that we were only going to be four shots out was really crazy,” junior Josh Jamieson said. “It’s difficult to even put into words how close four shots is over the course of four rounds.”

The Cats’ season-long penchant for starting slow cropped up again this week as the team dug itself into a hole on Friday morning, posting a round of 15-over 303. As they have done so often, though, the squad found a way to bounce back.

Friday afternoon saw four of NU’s five competitors come out red-hot, and a flurry of birdies quickly vaulted the team from 11th place to fifth before play was suspended for the day due to darkness. The fact that the stoppage came in the midst of the Cats’ charge up the leaderboard proved to be a stroke of misfortune and would ultimately stall their rally.

“Having to leave the course when four of our guys were under par really just kinda hurt our momentum, especially because we had to start the next morning on the hardest stretch of holes on the course,” freshman Dylan Wu said. “It’s no excuse, but it’s kinda too bad.”

The final five holes at the host Victoria National Golf Club are a notoriously treacherous stretch, and NU was far from the only team to fall victim to them on the weekend. But Jamieson believes that an inability to manage this part of the course ultimately came back to haunt the team.

“Dylan and I have been the top two players of our team for most of the year, and I’m not sure you could play those holes any more poorly than we did,” he said. “I know for me it was just a lot of dumb mistakes, which is definitely disappointing.”

While freshman Charles Wang and Wu led the way for the Cats, finishing at 6-over (T13) and 8-over (T18), respectively, the rest of the team’s usual contributors struggled to post their typical solid scores. Jamieson finished at 12-over (T29) while seniors Bennett Lavin and Matthew Negri ended up at 16-over (T39) and 20-over (T49), respectively.

Head coach David Inglis’ team knew that this week would be a critical one for their postseason chances. Now their middling result has left them in limbo for the foreseeable future.

Teams seeking to compete the in the NCAA Championships must first qualify for one of six Regional Championships held throughout the country. Teams winning their conference tournaments receive automatic bids to these events, while all other teams must hope to receive at-large bids based on their season-long national ranking.

Typically teams ranked between 65-67 nationally are considered to be those competing for the postseason’s final spots. NU currently sits at 72 in the most recent Golfstat poll, while Golfweek has the team at 63.

“It’s really out of our hands at this point, and we’ve done all that we can do,” Inglis said. “It would probably take a jump into the high 60s to get it done for us, so all we can do is hope for the best.”

To fall short of a postseason berth would be a significant disappointment for the Cats, who garnered high expectations after a strong fall season. The team’s youth showed at times this spring, but its vast potential was frequently on display as well, as evidenced by hot streaks like the one it displayed on Friday.

Runs like those have made team members confident that they could compete if given the chance to continue their season, and until Monday’s announcement of the postseason field, they will continue to prepare as if there are more holes to be played this year.

“We don’t have any control over what is going to happen, so we are going to go out and work every day like we’re still competing for a championship,” Wu said. “We have to be ready if our name is called.”

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