As Dustin Johnson cruised to a three-stroke BMW Championship victory Sunday at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana, 20 minutes down the road IU men’s golf wrapped up a condensed Wolf Run Intercollegiate in which they finished sixth out of a strong 14-team field.
Mental snags hindered the Hoosiers, IU Coach Mike Mayer said, after a blustery Saturday turned Wolf Run Intercollegiate from a 54-hole tournament to a 36-hole tournament.
“We need to make more birdies, and we need to lessen our mistakes,” Mayer said. “You’re going to make bad mistakes in this game, and you’re going to make bad shots, but I think our recoveries weren’t as good as they needed to be. We need to play smarter golf and manage ourselves better.”
Despite this, senior Andrew Havill signed off on a score of 73 for his final round Sunday and finished tied for sixth place in the tournament. In his fourth career top-10 finish, Havill led the Hoosiers with an even par weekend.
“Wolf Run is a course where you have to keep the ball on the fairway,” Havill said. “You have some long grass surrounding that which can get you into some trouble, but I did a good job of staying out of that and keeping the ball in the fairway, which allowed me to attack the golf course and be a little more aggressive going into the greens.”
In addition to Havill’s position on the leaderboard, the Hoosiers finished sixth as a team and shot a combined 22 over par for the tournament. Mayer said he believes Havill has yet to play his best golf but put forth a strong first effort nonetheless.
“I missed some eight- to 12-foot birdie putts, probably three or four each round, where if a couple of those go in it could’ve been a much better weekend,” Havill said. “But everything, for the most part, was solid. Nothing too special and nothing too bad.”
Both Havill and Mayer attested to the challenging conditions Saturday, which took 18 holes off the event. With gusting winds and sponges for greens, the course played even longer than it had during the Hoosiers’ practice sessions there this offseason.
“Sunday, the course dried out a little bit, and they tucked the pins in some hard places, so that’s why the scores were a little higher, but if you managed your ball and picked out safer targets you were fine,” Havill said. “Today definitely played easier than yesterday.”
Junior Brendon Doyle finished three over par for the day and tied for 14th and had a double bogey on 15 and a bogey on 18. Sophomore Jake Brown, who came into the tournament in the No. 5 spot for the Hoosiers, went seven over par Sunday and finished tied for 29th. Senior Keegan Vea struggled Sunday with two triple bogeys on holes nine and 12 and a double bogey on hole two. Freshman Brock Ochsenreiter wrapped up an 11-over Sunday tied for 45th.
The Hoosiers travel to Olympia Fields Country Club to play in the OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational next weekend.
