Men’s Golf

Northwestern has had its five starters perform well multiple times this season. They just haven’t done it together.

The Wildcats will look to put together a complete team performance this weekend at the Boilermaker Invitational in West Lafayette, Indiana. The tournament will be the team’s last tuneup before the Big Ten Championships.

Coach David Inglis said he is looking for his team to put together a consistent showing across the board.

“We’re really close to putting it all together, and this is just another opportunity, our last opportunity really of the regular season before Big Tens,” he said. “It’s just a matter of having the same approach.”

NU is coming off a particularly brutal loss at the Redhawk Invitational to Iowa State. Despite leading by six strokes with just three holes to go, the Cats lost as freshman Tripp Kinney eagled the final hole to give the Cyclones the win.

But even with the loss, there were some bright spots for NU. Junior Dylan Wu won the tournament and also won Big Ten Golfer of the Week honors.

“This is the kind of golf that we knew Dylan was capable of, and he should be high on confidence coming off of that win but he also knows he can’t get complacent,” Inglis said. “He’s got to keep going out there, keep going hard and earning it.”

Along with Purdue, the Cats will compete against a plethora of schools including No. 10 Kent State and No. 17 UNLV. NU is looking to win a tournament after finishing second at its last two, including at the Redhawk Invitational and at the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate in March.

After a strong performance at Desert Mountain, freshman Everton Hawkins struggled in Seattle, shooting 16-over-par. Wu said Hawkins could be an x-factor this weekend.

“His good golf is really good,” Wu said. “When Everton’s playing well, he can play really, really well. If we have him playing well, it’s hard for a lot of teams to beat us.”

The tournament will take place at the Kampen Course, which Inglis said the team knows well. Wu and sophomore Ryan Lumsden both stressed the importance of par-3s on the course. Lumsden said the team has worked on fat siding, or hitting the ball to the side of the green with the most space, throughout the week.

Lumsden said the team needs to focus on playing consistent golf throughout the competition, not worrying about the score.

“We need to do a better job of not focusing on where we are in the tournament and for me particularly, focus on doing a better job of just sticking to the process of hitting good shots,” he said.

This will be the last tournament of the regular season for Northwestern. Wu said he hopes the team can put together a complete performance and leave West Lafayette victorious.

“We haven’t had a tournament where everybody played especially well,” he said. “All of us are hitting our stride right now, so it’d be great to have all our guys in the top 15 and win by a huge margin. I believe in our guys that we can do that.”

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @thejonahdylan