The men's golf team will be teeing off this weekend at the 36th annual Kepler Intercollegiate.
This year, the Kepler will be played on the 7,159-yard course at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. It will be the second weekend in a row in which the Badgers will be playing in a tournament jam-packed with Big Ten talent.
Last weekend, the Badgers played at the Boilermaker Invitational in West Lafayette, Ind., where they finished in seventh place.
"The weather was very poor," UW head coach Jim Schuman said, referring to the Boilermaker tournament. "Scores were a little bit higher, but our guys played well. We would have loved to finish higher, there's no question about it, but we did some really good things. It was a positive week for us."
The seventh-place finish, however, was not a great indicator of how well the Badgers performed last weekend. Wisconsin held sole possession of first place after the first 18 holes last Saturday with a team score of 300.
Despite the early hot start, the Badgers fell to seventh place as the weather got worse on Sunday. They shot 312 and 299 to finish up the tournament.
Schuman also called this past weekend at the Boilermaker Invitational a learning experience for his young and inexperienced Badgers, who are made up of one junior, one sophomore and three freshmen.
"It was great learning how guys react in certain situations," Schuman said. "Everybody plays a little differently when they're in the lead, some guys really attack, some guys withdraw."
Sophomore Jeff Kaiser played solid all weekend at the Boilermaker. He led the team by shooting an even par in the first round and finished with a total score of 223, his lowest score for a three-round tournament in over a year.
Like the Boilermaker Invitational, the Kepler Intercollegiate will feature several schools with which Wisconsin is familiar. Schools from the Big Ten that will be at the Kepler this weekend, joining Wisconsin and host team Ohio State, are Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Purdue, Penn State, and Northwestern.
Indiana, Northwestern and Purdue all finished in front of the Badgers at last weekend's Boilermaker, while Michigan finished five strokes behind the Badgers. The Badgers may need to worry the most about OSU, a program that they did not see play last weekend.
The Kepler Intercollegiate is a tournament that the hosting Buckeyes have dominated in their history. Ohio State has won the Kepler 23 times in 36 years, capturing its last title in 2003. In fact, only six schools have ever won the Kepler Intercollegiate, Wisconsin not being one of those schools.
Aside from the stiff Big Ten competition, the Badgers will need to quickly adjust to the Muirfield Course that they have yet to play on. The Badgers have never played on the Muirfield Course before, as the Kepler is usually held at the Scarlet Course of Ohio State, which is about 300 yards longer than the Muirfield.
The Scarlet cannot be played on this year because it is going through renovations, and Schuman showed more excitement than worry about playing on a new course.
"The different golf course will be exciting for our guys," Schuman said. "It'll be new to everybody."
Schuman also said that extra preparation would be necessary if the Badgers want to succeed on an unknown course.
"We're going to take some extra time during the practice round on Friday to figure out what's best for each player," the coach said. "[The players] have different strengths, and how we can apply those [strengths] to the golf course is going to be really important this week."
The Badgers will also be without freshman Tyler Obermueller this weekend at the Kepler. Obermueller can't make the tournament because he will be going home this weekend. Nick Engen, another UW freshman, will be filling in for him.
Obermueller finished fourth on the team at the Boilermaker Invitational last weekend and his consistent play could be missed.
Wisconsin is searching for a high finish. Depending on how well they play this weekend against some of the best teams in the conference, the young Badgers could gain some needed confidence going into the Big Ten tournament on April 29-30.
