After a last-place finish at last week’s Boilermaker Collegiate, the Hoosiers are getting set to play in the Big Ten Championships this weekend at Victoria National Golf Course.
The 54-hole tournament gets going Friday in Newburgh, Indiana.
IU Coach Mike Mayer said he is trying to look past last week and focus in on the task at hand, which comes this upcoming weekend.
“It’s just golf,” Mayer said. “It’s a sport, and anything could happen to anybody at any one time. We want to show people we’re better than that. We want to show people we are able to finish rounds.”
There has been a bit of bad luck for the team as the one-two guys in the lineup have struggled at times, while others put together good rounds, Mayer said. They just haven’t been able to put it all together as a team quite yet.
“I really think we’re close, and hopefully we’re all ready to get on the same page and put it all together,” Mayer said. “That being said, we have to eliminate some mistakes we’ve been making. We’ve had some big numbers, and we’re not a good enough team to overcome the big numbers.”
One golfer for IU who has been steady of late is senior Max Kollin. Before last weekend’s tie for 51st, he turned in a 13th-place performance and a 16th-place performance.
“This is a really good opportunity,” Kollin said. “There’s a lot of good teams in the Big Ten, and for us to go out there and hopefully beat some teams is going to be a lot of fun.”
As for the golf course, Mayer calls Victoria National one of the toughest in the country with the closing holes in 16, 17 and 18 being some of the best.
“It’s brutal and not for the weak-minded,” Mayer said. “It’s going to be a tough championship in that regard.”
Kollin echoed many of the same thoughts as his coach but said he should be able to take advantage of making pars because he doesn’t get a whole lot of birdies.
“It’s going to be tough out there for sure,” Kollin said. “You don’t make a ton of birdies, but if you keep the ball in front of you and out of trouble, you can shoot some numbers.”
Now going into this weekend, Mayer is keeping an open mind as the 11-seed in the tournament. Last season, they finished fifth, and he said that makes the team a little bit more driven.
“Any one of these 14 teams can play well on any given day, so an 11-seed doesn’t mean much, a 4-seed doesn’t mean much,” Mayer said. “All of these teams are capable, and you just don’t know what will happen.”
As the season comes to a close, the Hoosiers will be looking to have some fun this weekend because they need it, Mayer said. He said this is a group that cares about what they do and understand the implications of what they do affects the team.
“I want, after two rounds, to be in contention to make an impact in this Big Ten Championship, and that’s our goal,” Mayer said.
