IU men’s golf comes off of its season-best finish at home to face five teams in Golfweek’s top 50 at rival Purdue.
Purdue is host to a 15-team gauntlet of national competition this weekend at Kampen Course. IU’s Big Ten rival boasts four top-three finishes, including two first place finishes, this season. The Boilermakers only finished outside the top 10 once in September.
The IU men come off their best team finish of the season and three of their best individual performances of the season. Freshman Brock Ochsenreiter posted his best career round in his first round of the Hoosier Invite with a four-under 67.
The Hoosiers sat at fourth after 36 holes Saturday and jumped two slots to finish second. IU shot the best round of any team Sunday.
Senior Andrew Havill, playing the final home tournament of his career, also recorded a 1-under score of 70 in his final round to put him at 1-over par for the tournament and a tie for 10th place individually. It's his second top-10 finish of the season, and he has finished inside the top 30 in seven of eight stroke play events this year.
Sophomore Jack Sparrow registered three birdies and one bogey to finish the day at 2-under par for the round and 2-over par for the tournament to tie for 12th — the best finish of his career — and his consecutive straight top-20 finish.
This weekend, Havill, Ochsenreiter, sophomore Jake Brown, Sparrow and junior Christian Fairbanks will represent IU as a team, with senior Keegan Vea competing as an individual. The tournament brings with it familiar faces for IU players, including Fairbanks, who said the Purdue lineup features some of his junior golf opponents.
One of Fairbanks’ acquaintances, Purdue sophomore Timmy Hildebrand, led Westfield High School to the 2013 and 2015 Indiana state championships and a runner-up finish in 2014 as a junior.
At the end of the day, it’s a friendly rivalry, Fairbanks says.
