IU to compete in Houston tournament

After watching his team struggle through periods of inconsistency and poor results in the fall season, IU men’s golf Coach Mike Mayer has abandoned unnecessary expectations, evoking the motto of late Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis — “just win, baby.”

“If you don’t think you have the ability or the mindset to win, you’re doing something wrong,” Mayer said. “We don’t have any goals other than winning, and that’s all we want to do.”

The Hoosiers, who travel to Houston this weekend for the Bayou City College Championships, hosted jointly by the University of Houston and Rice, will put this philosophy to the test against one of the stronger fields they will face all season. The 15-team field contains six programs that boast top-50 rankings, including Texas, sitting at No. 2 in this week’s rankings.

For Mayer, the prospect of playing some of the top teams in the country presents a rare chance to test his team against the best.

“We love to play against the best teams in the country. We don’t get this kind of opportunity often, to play against the best, and we’re going to take it,” Mayer said.

The No. 43 Hoosiers travel to Houston with a projected lineup of senior Brant Peaper, senior Michael McGee, junior David Mills, junior Hugo Menendez and senior Corey Ziedonis, Mayer said.

This weekend’s event marks the Hoosiers’ first stroke-play event of the 2013 season and their second event overall after a sixth-place finish at the Big Ten Match Play Championship two weeks ago.

In that event, the No. 4-seeded Hoosiers were felled by No. 5 Ohio State, a result of the difficulty many players had in regaining sharpness after the offseason.

“It’s always hard to come out of the winter,” Mills said, “but I think we’re ready to handle the challenge this time. We’re trying to get a little experience for the upcoming season.”

As one of the only teams from outside the South in the field, the Hoosiers will attempt to overcome a lack of practice time with a strong effort in the practice round and first few holes.

“Obviously we’re playing against mostly Southern teams in this tournament, but we’re going to have to overcome whatever disadvantage we may have,” Mayer said. “We’re not going to worry about that. We can’t do anything about it, so we’re going to control what we can control.”

Mayer has tabbed Mills, who has played in the back end of the Hoosier lineup for the majority of the season, as one of the key players for this weekend and the spring season.

“We have five key players, and I think they all can contribute, so there’s no more pressure on one than another,” Mayer said. “but if we can get David Mills playing how he’s capable of playing, that’s huge momentum for this program.”

The Bayou City Collegiate Championships will tee off Friday morning at Redstone Golf Club in Humble, Tex.