The Marquette men’s golf team will head to Lemont, Ill., this weekend for the John Dallio Memorial tournament with a retooled lineup and high hopes for a strong placing.
Among the new faces in the lineup are junior Ryan Prickette and freshman Austin Wilson. Prickette will make his first start of the fall season and hopes his skill in the short game will help turn the team’s struggles on the green around.
“I think I’m one of the best putters on the team, and even though I’ll have rounds where I strike the ball terribly, I’m able to make quite a few good putts to keep the score under control,” Prickette said. “If I strike it well like I have been over the past couple of days, and if I do still putt well at that point, I feel like I can put together some special rounds.”
Senior Matt Haase said that Prickette’s experience will help shake things up this week and bring some balance to the lineup.
“Ryan’s one of the most experienced players on the team, and he’s a good leader and a good guy to have around,” Haase said. “With him out there we are going to have an older, more experienced team.”
Coach Steve Bailey made changes to the lineup based on a series of qualifying rounds the team played over the last week and a half. This style of practice, he said, not only helps determine who will go to tournaments but keeps up a high level of competitiveness within the team.
“This past week we took the top two qualifiers as automatic bids for the tournament and as coaches we selected the other three,” Bailey said. “It gives guys who didn’t make the last tournament a chance, and it also keeps it competitive. It’s really hard to simulate the competitiveness of a tournament in practice, and the qualifiers we play do a good job of that.”
Bailey said the Golden Eagles have mostly focused on their short game this week, as they’ve already proven they can strike the ball well enough. He said putting would be key this weekend, and their success will come down to converting up and down opportunities.
“(Tuesday) we set up nine different putts from 12 to 20 feet and the guys would go around that rotation and hit until they made each one of those putts,” Bailey said. “We also had three, five and six-footers that they had to partner up with and make six in a row at each distance. In that case you’re putting pressure not only on yourself but on your teammate as well to make the putts so you don’t have to start all over again.”
Though this will be the first time Marquette will play in the Memorial, it will play a practice round on Friday at Ruffed Feathers G.C. and make use of aerial maps and yardage books of each hole and green.
“Every guy has a book,” Bailey said, “and they are making notes and going over every hole to strategize whether we should be aggressive or conservative on each hole.”
