Women's golf readies for Big Ten tourney

Last weekend's showing at the Wolverine Invitational wasn't exactly the high point of the season for the Michigan women's golf team. But at the very least, the Wolverines now have two weeks to regroup and fine-tune their games for the Big Ten Championships in West Lafayette. This will be the final tournament of the regular season.

Saturday and Sunday, despite hosting the Wolverine Invitational on their home course, the Wolverines finished fourth in the tournament. That, however, turned out to be fourth out of four Big Ten teams in the 13-team field. The Wolverines shot 75 over par at 659 - 33 shots off the blistering pace of 626, set by first-place Michigan State. Michigan also finished behind Purdue and Northwestern, and was not helped by the heavy Saturday rains, which caused 18 of the tournament's 54 scheduled holes to be canceled.

A bigger roadblock for Michigan, however, may have been the lack of practice during the week leading up to the tournament. Portions of the team's schedule were taken up by team pictures and other previously scheduled events, leaving just one day of full practice before Friday.

That's "the day before the tournament, and nobody really wants to practice too hard," said Wolverine freshman Misia Lemanski. Lemanski expects the team to get a great deal more practice time in upcoming days, before the Big Ten Championships begin at Purdue on Monday, Oct. 19.

"That leaves us two full weeks and weekends for preparation," Michigan coach Kathy Teichert said.

Michigan did shoot an impressive 312 over 18 holes of qualifying play last Tuesday before the tournament. Schedule disruptions may have caused the players to lose their edge by the time the tournament started, though.

"We need to work especially on our putting and our short game," Teichert said, echoing the sentiments of Lemanski and teammate Tera Hamo.

"We've lost a lot of confidence in those areas, and we will work on our mental aspects to remedy that," Teichert said.

Teichert predicted that Michigan's putting and up-and-down percentage would be keys to the team's performance at the Big Ten Championships. She also said the individual members of the team would have to spend time working on the weaker parts of their games during the next two weeks.

Michigan senior captain Sharon Park, the Wolverines' standout performer and sole senior, will have to come up big for the team to make a good showing in West Lafayette. Park threatened to take the tournament lead after 18 holes this weekend, posting a 3 over 76, but had to settle for second place behind Michigan State's Kasey Gant. Park finished second despite shooting an 80 on Sunday.

"It'll be a great opportunity (for us) to beat some of the other Big Ten teams that will be at the tournament," Teichert said.

"We're going to work hard at closing the gap."

10-07-98