IU title defense begins in Sunshine State

The Hoosiers enter this weekend as the undisputed Big Ten kings, but the team’s throne is about to be challenged.

Last year, IU entered the Big Ten Match Play Championship as the No. 2 seed and defeated No. 10 Purdue, No. 3 Michigan State and No. 4 Michigan en route to the title.

“It was a great tournament last year, and beating Michigan in the finals was impressive because they went on to finish in the final four of the NCAA’s,” IU coach Mike Mayer said. “We thought we were going to win going in, and we were totally confident we could win that event.”

The 2010 Match Play Championship seeding is done using GolfStat rankings with IU as the No. 5 seed playing against No. 4 Minnesota in the first round and a possible semi-final match against No. 1 seed Illinois.

“Minnesota is a good team and has arguably the best player in our conference in Ben Pisani, but I think we match up well with them,” Mayer said.

This will be the second year the Big Ten Match Play Championship is being played at Heron Bay Golf Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with Big Ten Network cameras rolling.

“It was cool because it was a new event, and it was something different with the TV cameras on you,” senior Alex Martin said. “It helped us confidence-wise, and coming off our last win in the fall, hopefully we can carry that on over to the spring.”

Since capturing The Renaissance Invitational in November, the Hoosiers have kept busy, playing various amateur events around the U.S.

“The New Year’s Invitational, we had everyone play in and Alex just got back from the Jones Cup,” Mayer said. “We finished the fall really strong, and I think that has carried over with the kids playing in those events.”

This will be the first of two match play events to open the 2010 portion of the Hoosiers’ schedule. The NCAA recently changed the National Championships from all stroke play to a mixture of stroke and match play.

“The biggest difference is your competitor is right there in front of you and you know what he is doing, versus as in the stroke play tournaments, you never really have a good grasp of what is going on,” Martin said.

— Kevin Bowen