Michigan women's golf coach Kathy Teichert hopes there's no place like home for the Wolverines. After two tournaments, Teichert hasn't been pleased with what she's seen.
"Right now our freshman and upper classmen are not really coming through to where I'd like to see them be," Teichert said. "If that continues to happen, we'll have trouble being competitive."
A struggling women's golf team will look to get on track this weekend when Michigan hosts its only tournament of the year, the Wolverine Invitational.
Two weeks ago at the Lady Northern Invite at Penn State, Michigan finished a disappointing 14th out of 16 teams. The poor finish was especially frustrating for the Wolverines because it came a week after a promising 5th-place performance at the Spartan Invitational.
Michigan's top-player Sharon Park has been averaging a score of 78.5 in two tournaments. Park finished tied for 11th place last year in the Wolverine Invitational, but this year she hasn't been satisfied with her scores.
"I haven't been playing well," Park said. "What I need is to gain confidence in myself. Once I do that, I'll probably play better."
Park sees improvement in the Wolverines' future.
"Our team has gotten off to a slow start, but we have a lot of potential," Park said. "This tournament is a good opportunity to show that we can play well. It seems that our team, like myself, lacks confidence. We need to play well once to get going."
Michigan has the advantage of playing on its par-73, 5,962-yard home course. Knowing the course should give Michigan golfers an edge.
"We have a huge advantage playing on our home course," Teichert said. "We know the greens better than anyone else. We know the holes. We know when you need to take a little extra club and when the greens will hold."
Park, on the other hand, doesn't see the Michigan golf course as home sweet home.
"It's somewhat of an advantage," Park said. "But then again, it's such a difficult golf course that there is no way we can match up to it ourselves."
Michigan will be part of a 13-team field featuring five Big Ten teams, including last year's Wolverine Invitational tournament champion, Indiana. The tournament will be played in a six-count-four format, meaning that six players from each team will play, with the lowest four scores counting. The golfers will play 36 holes Saturday and 18 holes Sunday, beginning at 9 a.m. each day.
The six-golfer lineup will include Park, seniors Laura Hess and Nicole Green, redshirt freshman Jennifer Baumann and true freshmen Amy Balliet and Amy Talbot. Freshman Trish Watkins won't be in the lineup this weekend, due to a bout with mono.
Coach Teichert has high hopes for the tournament.
"I'd like to have every person have their lowest individual scores and lowest tournament scores this weekend," Teichert said. "We'll do okay, we just need to get everyone going and we'll be fine."
10-02-97
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