Women's golf team battles the elements to 4h place finish

WEST LAFAYETTE — The temperature was in the 40s. Senior Amber Lindgren couldn’t feel her hands at the driving range.

Through her first 36 holes, she shot a 23-over 167 and sat back deep in the field, but she battled back.

“I thought, ‘one shot at a time,’” she said. “I really wanted to do good for the team (on) one of the countable rounds, so I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.”

Lindgren responded over the final 18 holes with a team best 3-over 75, and finished in 50th place to help the Hoosiers to a fourth-place finish Sunday in the Lady Northern Invitational, hosted by Purdue.

The tournament featured all 11 teams in the Big Ten conference, with the IU women’s golf team finishing third among them. Only Purdue with a 31-over 895 and Michigan State (48-over 912) beat the Hoosiers (60-over 924).

At last year’s Big Ten Championship, the Hoosiers finished 45 strokes behind the Boilermakers. This weekend, the team was only 29 shots back.

Junior Anita Gahir, who received second-team All-Big Ten honors last year with her 14th-place finish, paced the Hoosiers this weekend with a team-best 12th-place finish. Gahir said what she called the preview for the Big Ten Championship this season went well for her team.

“It’s really helpful that each of our players had a good round here, so they know it’s in them,” she said. “That’s a really good boost of confidence coming into the tournament in the spring, especially when conditions might be harder.”

In addition to the cold, the wind was blowing, and not a single woman in the 82-player field shot under par.

IU coach Clint Wallman said the team played to their capabilities this weekend and should be near the top of the leaderboard in the spring.

“I feel very strong that we can be one of the best teams in the Big Ten,” he said.

Juniors Kellye Belcher and Laura Nochta finished in a tie for 15th place, while the fifth Hoosier, sophomore Cecilia Orevik, finished in 62nd place.

Nochta, playing in front of her parents, who drove nearly seven hours from Ohio to watch her, had numerous two-putts, which cost her chances to make birdies and better her score. She even joked that her middle name should be “two-putt.”

On the first day, the team played 36 holes over 10 hours that lasted right up to sunset in West Lafayette.

Gahir said that although playing so long was difficult, she and her teammates managed to keep their focus.

“It’s just a matter of staying patient the entire time,” she said. “The days are slow and you get tired, but you know to keep your energy up and keep eating and try to think about other things while you’re playing.”

The Hoosiers’ final test of the fall season will come a week from today, when they travel to Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown.

“We’re hoping to fire on all cylinders,” Lindgren said, “all of us together in this last tournament, because we seem to not play well at the same time.”