Hoosiers travel to Columbus for Big Tens

The IU men’s golf team will travel to Columbus, Ohio, today for the three-day Big 10 Tournament. The competition will consist of a total of four rounds, with 36 holes played today and 18 played on both Saturday and Sunday. \nThe course, home to Ohio State University, is 7,454 yards with par set at 71. The team has already seen this course, though, when it competed in The Kepler Intercollegiate tournament April 14-15 and finished 10th overall. \n“It’s gonna be a little different this time just because of the weather,” said sophomore Seth Brandon. “Last time it was like 33 degrees and raining, so that’s what really made it hard. It’s a difficult golf course, but playable.”\nThe team, ranked No. 61 as of April 22, must play well all-around in order to place high in the final standings, coach Mike Mayer said. In order to pull off a win, Mayer said, each player must perform his best this weekend. \n“It’s gonna take an all out effort from all five players we take. We gotta have everyone contribute,” Mayer said. \nThe course, as the men saw earlier this spring, is extremely difficult and makes shooting low scores unlikely. While Mayer believes par will be a difficult score to achieve, one or two strokes over would still be outstanding.\nIn order to perform well on such a difficult course, teams must control themselves and maintain peak focus and discipline, Mayer said. Although low scores probably aren’t in the equation, the team that focuses best mentally will take home the trophy. \nThe team has been working hard in the past weeks to balance academics and athletics. With finals coming up, the team has to put schoolwork first but must also work on perfecting its golf game for the upcoming tournament. \n“We’re a week away from finals, we’ve been on the road every weekend, our schedule has been crazy to say the least,” Mayer said. “So practice has had to sort of take a back seat to preparations for finals and all that other stuff.”\nDespite the team’s hectic schedule, it expects to finish well this weekend. Top competitors, in Mayer’s opinion, are Michigan State University, Minnesota and Northwestern. \n“Once you get past those initial three, it’s wide open,” Mayer said. “I think if Indiana has a great tournament, we can win this thing.”