The Marquette men’s golf team heads into the Saint Mary’s Invitational in Pebble Beach, Calif., next week with aspirations to win its final tournament of the fall season.
After going 1-2 in three matches at The Match Play at Pine Needles, Haase said if the team musters up its best golf they should be competing for a tournament title.
“I think there’s no reason why, if we all play very well, we shouldn’t put ourselves in a position to win. I don’t see why not,” Haase said. “But we’d be happy with a top-three finish. If we play how we know we can play, it’s possible. We’re just going to go in there and play the best we can, and that’s all we can do. The results will take care of themselves.”
Senior Mike McDonald said the key to positive results at Saint Mary’s will be for the team to have the right state of mind going into the tournament.
“I don’t want to say we’ve been trying too hard, but we need to take a step back and realize that we’re able to do well in events,” McDonald said. “Rather than forcing it, we need to go out and do what we know we can do. We can’t focus on having to shoot under par. It’ll happen if we make it happen.”
Haase said the team really wants to do well in this event, especially because Wisconsin-Madison, a team many of the Marquette players trained with over the summer, will be there.
“One of our biggest goals is to beat the Badgers. Going in there and beating Wisconsin would be very big. There’s no reason to lose to Wisconsin,” Haase said. “Hopefully we get matched with them and have a fun day.”
The tournament will be played at Poppy Hills Golf Course, which hosts numerous PGA Tour events, including the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Redshirt junior Ben Sieg said that fact alone means the course will be one of the most difficult ones the team will play all year.
“I’ve never seen the course before, but it should be one of the tougher courses we play,” Sieg said. “The upper echelon Division-1 teams shoot over par on this course.”
Haase said playing match play golf brought everyone on the team back to the basics of the game and will help them achieve the results they want.
“After match play tournaments you get back to the mindset of playing one shot at a time, one hole at a time. That makes a better result rather than worrying about 18 holes,” Haase said. “You could end up taking a big number on a hole in stroke play that ruins your round, whereas in match play it’s only one point you lose. I think having that match play mindset sets up for a better stroke play mentality.”
Sieg said the team’s tough season thus far should loosen things up among him and his teammates.
“It can’t get too much worse. Let’s have some fun,” Sieg said. “We’re in California playing golf.”