Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: Sports

After an uncharacteristically rocky start to the season for the Northwestern men's golf team, head coach Pat Goss took an all-or-nothing approach for the next few tournaments-­the Wildcats needed to finish first.
Two rounds of golf later, the Cats took top honors at the Notre Dame Invitational, only their second tournament victory this year.
Though individual team members have had high finishes all year, the Cats have had difficulty building a competitive team score made up of four strong individual performances. But after last weekend, the team appears to be gelling.
"It's obviously an event we expect to win, and we'd be disappointed if we did anything else," Goss said. "Notre Dame played well, and to beat them on their own course was a good positive step."
Goss said he expected to win because he felt NU was better than the other eight teams in the field. Past tournaments featured stiffer competition, with many teams ranked in the Golfweek top 50.
Sophomore David Lipsky led the Cats and tied for first overall, the best finish of his collegiate career, with a two-round score of 1-under 139.
"It seems like all the improvements that I've made over the winter quarter have come to fruition in this one event," said Lipsky, who started the year off hot but fell into a slump since the team's first tournament of the spring season.
The Cats were carried by their youth, as three players with fewer than two years of experience finished in the top 15: Lipsky (tied for first), freshman Josh Dupont (tied for seventh), and sophomore Jonathan Bowers (tied for 12th).
While he is happy with the success of his younger players, Goss said he is still concerned with the inconsistent play of his two seniors, Dan Doyle and Kyle Moore.
"It's one of those deals where you can see that all of their skills are good, everything is good, they just need to get a little bit of momentum to get over that hump and get a good shot of confidence," Goss said.
To Goss, getting good play out of the seniors heading into the end of the season is integral to NU's success. Right now, the Cats' record stands at four under .500 (every team NU finishes ahead of at a tournament counts as a win, while every team it finishes behind is a loss).
To qualify for the Big Ten championships, NU must finish with at least a .500 record, and Goss said the team will count on its seniors to do so.
"You really depend on the seniors that are as good as Dan and Kyle are to be that consistent rock," Goss said. "You know you're going to get good scores from them; you don't have to worry about it."
The team hopes the win at Notre Dame will help relieve some of the pressure on Doyle and Moore.
"This tournament was a huge confidence booster for our team, and it shows that we can put together rounds when we need to," Lipsky said.
The Cats will be back in action this weekend at the Kepler Intercollegiate, hosted by Ohio State.

zacharybuchanan2007@u.northwestern.edu

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