Men's golf looks to bolster resume

The IU men’s golf team will travel to West Lafayette for this weekend’s Boilermaker Invitational, its last regular season tournament.

Fresh off their first win of the season in their home tournament last weekend, IU Coach Mike Mayer said the team has been steadily improving the last several weeks.

“I think we’re definitely moving in the right direction,” Mayer said. “We’re playing better, but golf is a fickle sport, so we’ll see.”

The Hoosiers will start the same five golfers they used last week.

Senior David Mills, sophomore Max Kollin, freshman Will Seger and juniors Nicholas Grubnich and Andrew Fogg form the lineup.

Mills is coming off his best finish of the season, a tie for second, and Mayer said he is firmly secure in the number one spot in the lineup.

Just as he did in the NYX Hoosier Invitational, Kollin will golf from the second position. He said the team finally showed what they can do last weekend.

“I feel like we have a lot of confidence moving forward,” Kollin said. “We finally put together three solid rounds back to back.”

Seger, Grubnich and Fogg round out IU’s top five. They tied for third, tied for fifth and tied for 19th last week, respectively.

One team that lineup will try to beat is the host school, Purdue. While Grubnich and Kollin said the instate rivalry is extra motivation for the Hoosiers, Mayer said he doesn’t worry as much about his competition.

“I like to beat everybody,” Mayer said. “It’s irrelevant for me whether it’s Purdue or anybody else. We just have to do what we have to do. We have to take care of ourselves first and foremost.”

The Boilermakers won’t be the only familiar face in West Lafayette. With seven Big Ten teams competing this weekend, Grubnich said the tournament will be a good lead into the Big Ten Championship in French Lick, Ind., in two weeks.

“It should be a good little preview,” Grubnich said. “The Purdue course as well as the French Lick course are designed by Pete Dye, and they are very similar.”

The Hoosiers will have to perform well this weekend and in the Big Ten Championship if they hope to make the postseason this year.

No IU men’s golf team has missed the NCAA Tournament since 2007, a six-year stretch of postseason appearances.

Mayer said his team’s performance in the 2013-14 season has put that streak in jeopardy, though he sees opportunity to bolster the Hoosiers’ resume.

“We’ve kind of put ourselves behind the eight ball,” Mayer said. “But this is a tough tournament with a tough field, and it’ll give us an opportunity to move up in the rankings. If we do well these next few weeks, I think we got a good shot of
getting in.”