After yet another long, harsh winter, the Marquette men’s golf team begins its spring season this weekend, traveling to sunny Florida to play in the USF Ron Smith Invitational in Dade City.

The tournament at Lake Jovita Country Club marks the first action for the team since November 10, when it finished 12th at the St. Mary’s Invitational in California.

“The first tournament is more to warm up and see where our swings are at,” senior Mike McDonald said. “We’re definitely, whether it’s cold here or not, going down there expecting to play well and compete.”

Marquette is familiar with the Lake Jovita course, having played there twice last year.

“The good thing is we all know the course very well,” junior Kelly Kretz said. “Most of us have played it quite a bit.”

This knowledge could serve as a big advantage to the Golden Eagles.

“It helps quite a bit for sure,” junior Ben Steig said. “I think Ryan (Prickette) is the only one who hasn’t played it more than once or twice, but we’ll be able to help him out.”

After a four-month hiatus, however, the most important thing will be to get the rust of a Milwaukee winter off.

“It’s going to be a tough one,” McDonald said. “We went down there last week for a warm up, but it’s tough coming out of the winter.”

Marquette is at a disadvantage compared to other universities because of its geographic location. Warm-weather schools like South Florida get the benefit of year-round play, while Marquette settles for the little things it can do to stay sharp.

“We’ve been working out three days a week at 7 a.m.,” Steig said. “The days we aren’t working out we are hitting as many golf balls as we can.”

A large portion of those balls hit go toward working on precision rather than length. The Marquette Gym, commonly called the Old Gym, houses a turf putting green where the players can get a few extra reps.

“We’ve been working on our short game,” Kretz said. “We’ve worked a lot at the Al (McGuire Center) and the Old Gym, doing whatever we can in January and February in Wisconsin.”

The Golden Eagles have also worked to keep their long shots up to par.

“We’ve been going to the dome a lot,” McDonald said.” When it is a little warmer out we try to hit balls in the heated driving ranges so we can actually see what the balls are doing.”

Still, none of those practice methods is a suitable substitute for walking 18 holes.

McDonald went to Arizona for a weekend to get in some extra swings and prepare for the season ahead.

Expectations are low, but not non-existent, for the first tournament.

“I’m hoping that it’ll be a strong finish,” McDonald said. “My swing feels good right now. I put a lot of hard work in, in the offseason. I’m where I need to be at this stage. So hopefully I’m competing for a win, because that’s what you want to be doing — competing for a win.”