The University of Wisconsin men's golf team has been relegated to the middle of the pack as of late, finishing in 13th place at last weekend's Kepler Intercollegiate and in seventh place two weeks ago at the Boilermaker Invite.

While the team as a whole has basically played equal to the expectations placed on them at the beginning of the year, individual golfers have risen to the challenge.

Sophomore Patrick Duffy, who redshirted last year, has been coming on strong for the Badgers, shooting a 229 at the Boilermaker and a 237 at the Kepler to finish second on the team for both tournaments.

Before two weekends ago, Garrett Jones or Jeff Kaiser — the two oldest golfers on the UW team — finished in top two for Wisconsin in all but one tournament for the entire year, so Duffy's recent efforts have changed the leaderboard quite a bit.

Interestingly enough, Duffy just started playing golf at the Division I level this year. Duffy may be the best young player on a team of mainly young guys, but he insists that the true leaders of the team are in fact the elders, Jones and Kaiser.

"Having one year under my belt, I feel like I have a leadership role over the younger guys," he answered jokingly. "Our two captains on the team are Jeff [Kaiser] and Garrett [Jones]."

Duffy said he believes that his redshirt season improved his game dramatically.

"My game has changed a lot. … I really changed my swing redshirting last year," he explained. "I used to grip it and rip it; now, I really manage my spots as opposed to hit as hard as I can down the fairway.

"I've refined some of the things … improved managing the course better, and [I've] just given myself chances to make par as opposed to going for birdie," Duffy continued.

When asked which professional golfer's game he emulates the most, Duffy snickered and said, "I'd like to say Tiger." Later on, Duffy decided that Phil Mickelson is most likely the pro that he responds to the most because "he hits the ball real well."

At last weekend's Kepler Intercollegiate, although Duffy finished second on the team with 237 strokes, he placed just 52nd overall. Duffy said he was disappointed with the overall performance.

"I don't feel I played that great. … As a whole, we all struggled quite a bit," Duffy said, referring to the Kepler. "I wasn't feeling too great about my swing. I was just trying to hit the middle of the fairway and the middle of the green."

The Badgers have not had a picture-perfect season by any ends of the imagination, but with such a young team, there is room for vast improvements. There are no regularly-playing seniors on the team, and Duffy and his band of freshmen can give the experienced Jones and Kaiser some competition in the starting spots over the next couple of years.