The Iowa women’s golf team teed off play this morning at the Hawkeye Invitational, the team’s only home tournament.

After a first round score of 306, Iowa’s best mark of the season, the Hawkeyes sat in third place.

Freshman Kristi Cardwell led the team with an even-par score of 72, putting her in a tie for first place individually. Juniors Brianna Coopman, Laura Cilek, and Lauren Forbes also broke 80 with scores of 77, 78, and 79.

The second round of play was suspended due to darkness at roughly 6:20 p.m., leaving most of the Hawkeyes with a few holes left to play.

Cilek and sophomore Chelsea Harris currently have the low scores on the team at three over.

The Hawkeyes’ second-round play dropped them to fourth place, just one stroke behind third-place Missouri State and nine strokes behind leader Illinois.

“We had a really good first round, but we kind of struggled a little bit in the second round,” assistant coach John Owens said. “We have to get off to a great start tomorrow. There’s a couple teams in front of us we can catch, so hopefully we can do that and finish in the top three.”

The second round of play will resume Sunday at 9:00 a.m., followed by the third and final round.

— by J.T. Bugos

By J.T. Bugos
joseph-bugos@uiowa.edu
The Iowa women’s golf team traveled to Madison, Wis., for the Lady Northern Invitational on Sunday. After a disappointing first tournament in East Lansing, Mich., at the Mary Fossum Invitational, the Hawkeyes hoped to bounce back.
While the team didn’t meet expectations by placing in the top five, Iowa did show improvement.
Purdue won the Lady Northern by a wide margin, finishing with a three-round score of 865 (1 over). Ohio State and Michigan State tied for second with team scores of 878.
Iowa finished 12th out of 15 teams with a score of 939. The finish marked improvement from the first tournament — the Hawkeyes cut 25 strokes from their overall score.
“I feel really good about our improvements in play from our first tournament,” head coach Kelly Crawford said. “We did a much better job reaching greens, and that was due to our efforts in practice. Our scores were lower under much tougher conditions.”
The Hawkeyes started the first round on a rough note, Crawford said, and the team fell 14 strokes back through the first three holes. The team settled down, though, and finished in a tie for 13th place with a score of 314 (26 over). Iowa was led in the opening round by freshman Kristi Cardwell and junior Laura Cilek.
Cardwell posted a 76 (4 over), while Cilek carded a 77.
The team got off to a strong start in round two, Crawford said, but unfortunately, bad weather caused the second round to be suspended. No Iowa player had completed more than 10 holes before thunderstorms rolled in.
Play resumed the following morning, and the team completed round two with a score of 311. Senior Alison Cavanaugh was the lowest scorer with a 75, and sophomore Chelsea Harris shot a 77.
Round three resulted in an identical score to round one: 314. Harris and Cilek both had the low score for the round, carding 78s. Cardwell and junior Brianna Coopman finished right behind their teammates with 79s.
Harris said the wind on the second day was so strong, she was afraid to put her putter on the ground and have the wind move the ball and incur a penalty. While conditions were harsh, neither Harris nor Cilek used it as an excuse.
“The weather wasn’t the best for the two days, but we dealt with it, and I don’t think anyone let it bother her,” Cilek said. “We are faced with those conditions lots of times in practice, so I felt like we handled the wind and rain pretty well.”
The Lady Northern was a preview for the Big Ten championships in April 2010. While the Hawkeyes finished 10th out of the 11 Big Ten teams, they are still confident they can compete for the top spots by the end of the golf year.
“We saw that all the Big Ten teams are very good, but we also saw that even the best in the conference make mistakes,” Cilek said. “They just dealt with them better than we did. If we trust our game and accept the up and downs that come with a round, we will definitely be able to compete with the teams that finished at the top of the leaderboard this week.”