Hoosiers try to rebound at Westbrook Invitational

Legendary golfer Bobby Jones once said, “Golf is played in that little four-inch space between your ears.”

After finishing 14th of 15 teams in the Lady Puerto Rico Classic on Feb. 12, the IU women’s golf team is ready to get back out on the course again and show they are capable of better results, IU Coach Clint Wallman said.

“They have a quiet determination this week,” Wallman said. “We went into a very strong field (in Puerto Rico) and didn’t get the results we were expecting, but it was a good check for us early to realize we have to get on our game pretty quickly.”

For the Westbrook Invitational, hosted by the University of Wisconsin and teeing off Feb. 24 in Arizona, the competition stays at a very high level with solid teams like No. 2 Washington, No. 22 Texas Tech and No. 14 Arkansas in the field. Wallman and his players are well aware of the challenges awaiting them, but they sounded confident when discussing the upcoming tournament.

“This week we have probably got not quite as strong a field as we did in Puerto Rico, but this is still a fairly significant field to say the least,” Wallman said.

Sophomore golfer Elizabeth Tong said the team has to be more consistent.

“We just have to be more consistent and stick with our game plan,” she said. “Puerto Rico felt like it was more of a warm-up for us due to our long lay-off, and we know that this is a quality field, so if we get back to the basics we will be fine.”

Tong tied for 59th in Puerto Rico, posting a three day total of 235 (76-78-81) for the Hoosiers. The Hoosiers leading scorer was Kristen Schelling who wound up tied for 45th after firing off a 232 total (79-77-76).

Tong said little mistakes seemed to plague the Hoosiers in their first tournament, and they know they must eliminate them and prevent small mistakes from snow-balling into large scores.

“We just lost a lot of shots on putting, and we lost a lot of balls, as well,” she said. “As a team I think we lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 golf balls, which adds up to about 40 extra shots. If we can avoid little things like that and keep it in play, we should be fine.”

Wallman said minimizing mistakes would be key to how his team performed in Arizona.

“When we made mistakes in our last tournament, we made pretty good sized ones, and that’s something we didn’t do in the fall,” Wallman said. “That usually happens when you don’t play for a while, but making our big numbers small is going to be a huge key for us moving forward.”

The two-day tournament will be Sunday and Monday at the Westbrook Village Golf Club in Peoria, Ariz. The field includes 12 total teams and the Hoosiers will see plenty of Big Ten foes with Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa all participating, as well.