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Home sweet hom: Wildcat returns to familiar links

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Also by Cassie Paulsen:

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UW grapples in Las Vegas (November 29, 2007)
Wisconsin wrestles season's 1st big test (November 16, 2007)
Wrestling team heads to Green Bay (November 2, 2007)

by Cassie Paulsen

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

There is something that makes the University of Wisconsin special and different from other universities around the nation. The students here know it, and visitors can feel it when they step foot on campus.

That is, perhaps, why Dan Woltman decided to transfer back to his home state and play golf here at UW.

"It's nice to be home," Woltman said.

Woltman, a native of Beaver Dam, some 40 miles northeast of Madison, spent his freshman year on a full golf scholarship at the University of Kentucky. Woltman received numerous scholarship offers during his senior year at Watertown Luther Prep, including one for Wisconsin, but chose to compete for the Wildcats of Kentucky.

"Kentucky has been known as being a good golf school," Woltman said. "I really thought Kentucky was the right choice for me, but after a year I realized it wasn't."

Woltman spent much of this past summer not only working on his golf game, but also thinking about where he would take his skill to continue playing once the school year started.

"I loved everything about Kentucky … except for the golf," Woltman said. "I made a lot of friends down there. But things just didn't mesh well with the coaches, and the guys on the team just seemed to be too different than me."

So Woltman made the choice to play for head coach Jim Schuman and the Badgers.

"I've played with a lot of the guys on the team here since I was ten or eleven years old," Woltman said. "We all started young with the junior tournaments. I played a lot with them this summer too. They all talked to me about transferring up here and playing here. The more they talked, the more I thought I could help turn around this program."

And what a turnaround it has been for the cardinal and white. So far this season, the Badgers have two tournament titles to go along with a fifth-place and third-place finish. According to Woltman, those tournament wins were the first for the program in two years.

"Dan's been a great addition to this team," Schuman said. "He's undoubtedly a great player. It helps that he's such good friends with the guys on this team … it's just a great fit for him."

Last season, Woltman helped Kentucky to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Championships. He finished the year ranked as the 134th best player according to Golf Week Magazine. Currently the magazine has him listed at 59th.

He's already got his name in the Wisconsin record books, holding the second-lowest 54-hole score when he carded a 14-under-par 202 as he took the individual title at the Mattaponi Springs Invitational earlier this fall.

"Dan brings such a talent to this team," Schuman said. "He's won college titles, state and national junior titles. His skill and his winning attitude have been huge for us thus far this year."

With the success Woltman has had playing in junior tournaments and thus far in college, he is already thinking about the day when he will take his game to the professional level and compete on the PGA Tour.

"I've thought about turning pro early," Woltman said. "It all depends on what I feel that the time is right. When I feel that I can be competitive on the tour and make some money, that's when I'll make that decision and take the next step."

But for now, Woltman is just living the college dream.

"I love it here at Wisconsin," Woltman said. "I'm home and close to my family and so many of my friends.

"Right now it just feels right to be a Badger."