Women's golf seeks consistency in Indiana

In athletics, consistency is often the key to success. The Michigan women's golf team will be looking for that very thing this weekend at the Indiana Invitational. The Wolverines will travel to Bloomington to play 36 holes of golf on Saturday and 18 on Sunday.

The Wolverines are hoping to bounce back from their 13th-place finish at the March 23-24 River Wilderness Invitational, and the biggest key in accomplishing that may be gaining consistency.

The favorable weather that has hit Ann Arbor in the past week has helped the Wolverines tremendously.

"We haven't been that much on top of our game," Michigan coach Kathy Teichert said. "For previous tournaments, we haven't had the opportunity to practice and play outside as much as we would have liked. But the last week has been great."

Participating in this weekend's tournament will be golfers Sharon Park, captain Nicole Green, Laura Hess, Amy Talbot and Jennifer Baumann.

Aside from the weather, the Wolverines have been doing individual work to improve their games. Talbot has been working on weakening her grip a bit, improving her lever system and shortening up her swing, Teichert said. Trish Watkins, who will not be traveling with the team this weekend, has been trying to narrow her stance.

"Each kid has something specific to work on," Teichert said. "Overall, each person is working 100 yards in, chipping around the green and putting. These are qualities we've been lacking in."

Out of the 16 teams participating in Bloomington, 10 are from the Big Ten. Penn State is the only conference team that will be absent. Although it will not have much influence on Michigan's ranking, the tournament should give the Wolverines a good idea of how they stack up against the rest of the Big Ten.

"For us, it's just another tournament," Teichert said. "It will help us to get a better idea of where we are versus everyone else. We want to beat a lot of Big Ten schools, but realistically, it's going to be tough. There are a lot of good schools in the conference."

So far, Park has been the Wolverines' No. 1 scorer, a trend Teichert said she expects to continue. Nonetheless, Teichert said she would like to see other members of the team step it up.

"We need senior leadership from Nicole Green and Laura Hess," Teichert said. "I expect them to pick their games up a notch. We're giving Jennifer more of an opportunity to play. We want to see how she's going to react in pressure situations, so she can be prepared for the Big Ten Championships."

04-02-98