In their first full meeting of GLIAC competition, the Hillsdale College golf team tied for sixth place at the GLIAC North Invitational held this past Sunday and Monday at Hawks Head Links in South Haven, Michigan. This is up from a 13th place finish last fall.
Grand Valley won the tournament with an overall score of 581 on the par-72 course. The Chargers finished just 18 shots back for a team score of 599.
Freshman Joel Pietila once again led the team, scoring 73-71 for a 144 and solo-seventh finish. Australian-native freshman Liam Purslowe finished one shot behind Pietila at 145 and tied for 8th in his collegiate debut.
Head coach Nathan Gilchrist noted that one of the highlights of his weekend was seeing freshman Andy Grayson shave eight shots off his score between rounds one and two for a tournament score of 154.
Sophomores Logan Kauffman and captain Joe Torres shot 159 and 162 for the tournament, respectively.
The links style of the course differed from that of the previous tournament.
“The course was extremely nice and similar to what I play back home, so it tended to suit me better than some of the other players,” Purslowe said.
This was evident by his birdie-eagle start on Sunday, putting him at 3-under through the first two holes.
“It was a nice start to my college career,” he said.
Overall, the team shot 305-294, for a drop of 11 shots between rounds.
“Being such a young team, composed of mostly freshmen and sophomores, they make some mistakes on the first day,” Gilchrist said, “but they identified that and did a better job of tightening up their rounds on the second day and eliminating the unforced errors.”
“Our freshmen played really well, especially the second day, combining for even par,” Kauffman said. “The way they play is not the way most freshmen play. They have a lot of composure and that’s something you can’t really teach. They are a different breed.”
Kauffman himself dropped three shots on the second day and said the difference was his confidence over the ball.
“Sometimes you don’t have your normal game but you have to adapt to what you have that week,” he said. “I was able to shoot a respectable score even though I didn’t have my best game.”
Both Gilchrist and Kauffman commented on the “fine line” between finishing first and finishing sixth.
“Eliminating just a few shots from each player would put us near the top of the leaderboard each week,” Gilchrist said.
The Chargers have another chance next week at the Midwest Regional tournament in Chicago, Illinois, the largest tournament of the fall season.
“Last year we finished in the middle of the pack and with the maturity of this year’s team, I feel we have a really great chance for a strong showing. We will be very competitive,” Gilchrist said.
The team wants to play well.
“In our second year we have a lot of motivation to put the work in, even just to prove people wrong,” Kauffman said. “Hillsdale College is a tiny school with a new team and people think we are nothing to worry about. But any week we put everything together, we’re going to beat the socks off of all of them.”