Northwestern’s golf programs both stayed in the Land of Lincoln this week. The women hosted the Windy City Collegiate Classic in Glencoe, recovering from a last-place opening round to finish ninth. On the men’s side, senior Archie Finnie led the Wildcats’ three-man individual contingent with a top-15 finish at Kemper Lakes.
Women’s golf: Wildcats climb to ninth at home after rough start
Northwestern’s women hosted a 12-team field at Lake Shore Country Club from Oct. 5-6 and finished the week 32-over. Stanford won the tournament at 4-over, while Virginia and Duke
tied for second at 10-over with Virginia’s Jaclyn LaHa taking home the individual championship at 7-under.
It was about as rough a start as the ’Cats could have had, opening with a 302 (+18) that left them tied for last after day one with Tulsa. They rebounded the next day with 287 (+3), their best of the tournament, before closing with 295 (+11) to move past Arizona and Tulsa for a ninth-place finish.
Senior Ashley Yun bounced back from her T44th finish at Mason Rudolph in September, leading the Wildcats with a T14th finish at 4-over, with rounds of 74, 71 and 72. Her 39 pars tied for seventh in the field.
First-year Rebecca Wang’s turnaround was the story of the week. After a T81 finish in Tennessee and an opening round of 79, she posted a team-low in the second round with a 70, then finished just one stroke behind in the final round with a 71. Her final 36 holes tied for fourth-best in the field, trailing only LaHa, Purdue’s Lauren Timpf and Stanford’s Meja Örtengren. In the final round, Wang jumped 15 spots to finish T28 (+7) and led the team with nine birdies.
Junior Hsin Tai Lin finished T36 (+10) with rounds of 73-75-75. Junior Emilie Knai took a big step down following her T11 finish in Tennessee, finishing T56 (+16), with her best round coming on the second day with an even-par 71. Sophomore Lauren E. Lee and junior Megan Meng trailed, finishing 57th (+19) and 59th (+20), respectively. Junior Judy Joo rounded out the lineup, finishing 63rd (+24).
As a team, Northwestern excelled on par 5s (T6th, 1-under) and tied for 5th in birdies with 32. Par 3s were a struggle for the group, finishing 11th on such holes at 21-over, and the Wildcats had the most double bogeys or worse in the field (11).
Men’s Golf: Finnie Cracks the Top 15 as Trio Battles Kemper Lakes
The men sent three individual entrants to the Kemper Lakes Intercollegiate, hosted by Belmont from Oct. 5-6. The par-72 course proved tough for teams across the board, with the field averaging 79.02. Drake’s Jake Weissenburger was the only golfer in the 78-player field to finish under par, winning at 5-under.
Finnie handled the course the best of the group, tying for 12th at 11-over with rounds of 77, 75 and 75. The Scot beat the average field in every round and climbed up eight spots on the final day. Finnie’s best stretch came in the front nine of Round 2, birdieing on holes three and four. In the final round, Finnie birdied the par-4 16th, the course’s toughest hole in the tournament, with the field averaging 4.65 on the hole. He also ranked ninth in the field on par-4s (+5), and his 34 pars tied for fifth.
Mark Gazi finished T27 (+16) with rounds of 79, 75 and 78. In Round 2, Gazi sank four birdies, including back-to-back on holes 14 and 15, but a triple bogey on hole 8 proved costly. Gazi was strong on the par 5s, tying for 10th in the field at 2-under.
First-year Carl Möller opened the tournament with a solid 76 (+4), enough to finish T22 after the first day. The remaining rounds were derailed by a few troubling holes, including a triple-bogey on hole 4 in Round 2 and a quintuple-bogey on 12 in Round 3. Möller finished the tournament tied for 59th at 30-over, with rounds of 76, 84 and 86.
Up next, the women head to Stanford, California, for the Stanford Intercollegiate starting Oct. 16, while the men head to Alpharetta, Georgia, for the the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational, also starting Oct. 16.
