Cold conditions expected for weekend tourney at Purdue

The IU men’s golf team will travel to West Lafayette tomorrow for the Boilermaker Invitational, its third tournament of the season. \nThe two-day tournament will consist of 54 holes, with par set at 72. The team will play two rounds Saturday and one round Sunday.\nKampen Course, the site of the 2008 national tournament, is 7,382 yards. Famed course designer Pete Dye’s layout is longer than most, and it will prove to be one of the more difficult courses the team will play on. \nThere will be 15 teams present this weekend, 10 of which IU coach Mike Mayer believes are strong enough to win. \nPurdue will be a tough competitor, as they will be competing on their home course which always gives an advantage.\nSophomore Jorge Campillo is expected to play well after finishing first individually for two consecutive tournaments. \nFellow sophomores Drew Allenspach and Seth Brandon will also look to keep improving while contributing to the team’s success. Also traveling are sophomore Brandon Pike and freshman Alex Martin.\nWith two consecutive wins on the team’s record, the men look to use momentum and confidence from previous tournaments to continue through this weekend.\n“We want to make it three in a row,” Brandon said. “That’s absolutely our goal, and I don’t think anyone on this team would really accept anything less.”\nTo win the competition, the team feels it needs to focus on its short game, and it has spent much of the past few weeks practicing putting. The team’s practice facility was opened after spring break, so the team has been able to work more on its short game recently, Mayer said. \nWhile the team’s previous two tournaments were held in warm weather, this weekend the men must adjust their game to the cold weather in West Lafayette. With snow predicted for Sunday, conditions are less than optimal.\n“The weather’s going to be a huge factor in this tournament,” Mayer said. “There’s no denying it and there’s no getting around it.”\nWhile the weather is expected to be vicious, Allenspach said the extreme conditions will take their toll on every player’s game, and that the weather will be no excuse for poor play.\nMayer added that whoever handles the weather best will probably win the tournament. In order to prepare for that, the team plans to talk about the conditions and prepare for them as best as possible. \n“This will be a battle. This will be brutal. This will be pretty extreme,” Mayer said. “We’re just going to have to prepare ourselves the best we can, and handle the elements.”