The best golf colleges in the Midwest compete against one another every April in West Lafayette, Ind., and the University of Wisconsin men's golf team received its annual invitation to this year's Boilermaker Invitational.
The Badgers look forward to teeing off on the Kampen Course at the Brick Boilermaker Golf Complex, where they hope to have success.
The Kampen course, built in 1994, is one of two courses at the Brick Boilermaker Golf Complex. It measures more than 7,300 yards and is filled with large greens and treacherously placed sand bunkers.
There will be many Big Ten teams at this year's Boilermaker Invitational, including Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa. Other strong Midwest golf schools will be smacking balls around as well, such as Wichita State and Missouri.
The Boilermaker Invitational, in terms of the Big Ten, is essentially a measuring stick to see which teams are on top in the conference. The Badgers, who haven't won a Big Ten Championship since 1994, would love to make a statement in West Lafayette this weekend, but the level of competition is no joke.
UW head coach Jim Schuman calls this weekend's Boilermaker Invitational "an unbelievably strong field." The Badgers are confident, however, because they believe their team is right in the mix with the other Midwest teams.
The confidence comes partly from the level playing field in the Big Ten conference this year and partly from the "outstanding effort" Schuman has been recently seeing in his team.
"I'm happy with how we've been striking the ball," Schuman said."[Our team's] talent is there," he added, referring to his golfers' ability to get the ball in the hole with great consistency. "It's exciting. We're only three weeks away from the Big Ten Championship."
The Boilermaker Invitational will be a potential preview of the Big Ten Championships this year but will be missing some of the conference contenders. The past two Big Ten champions — Michigan State and Ohio State — will not be in West Lafayette.
The Badger coach was optimistic but also said success will only occur if there is improvement. The coach seems to be most concerned with the Badgers' "experience factor," as he calls it, and also said the players' "management could be better."
According to Schuman, "management" refers to getting his players to make the best decisions while on the golf course. Whether with club selection, green speeds or a lack of aggressive play, Schuman thinks his players need to play the mental game better.
Coach Schuman will play three freshmen and a sophomore for this weekend's tournament. The Badgers' lone sophomore, Jeff Kaiser, and junior Garret Jones have finished first and second on the team in every 2006 tournament except one.
If the Badgers are to win this weekend's invitational, the two elder statesmen will have to lead the way.
Wisconsin, on the whole, was not particularly impressive in last year's Boilermaker, where they finished in ninth place behind Big Ten schools Purdue (second) and Indiana (fourth). Jones was not on his "A" game, either. He shot a sky-high 228 and was 10 strokes worse than his 218 average for 54 holes in 2005.
