Playing 36 holes of golf in one day was not a problem for the women's golf team this past weekend at the Michigan State Invitational as previously expected.
The Lady Lions shot a 312 the second round of the first day, to rack up their second lowest team total of the season. The squad shot a 310 the final day of the Lady Tar Heel Invitational two weeks ago.
None of the players had ever played the East Lansing course before; Penn State scored a 334 the first round before it got familiar with the course.
Going into the second day of competition on the Forest Acres Golf Course, Penn State was tied for fourth with Wisconsin, which eventually dropped to seventh overall in the 13-team field.
The Lady Lions finished in fifth place by shooting a 323 on Sunday for a 969 total, only six strokes behind tournament runner-up and host Michigan State. Nebraska won the competition with a 933 three-round total. The University of Michigan came in third after breaking a tie with would-be fourth-place Northern Illinois.
"When you're only six shots out of second place and you finish fifth it's a little disappointing," Assistant Coach Denise St. Pierre said. "But we're at least seven or eight shots better team average-wise than we were last year.
"One of the nice things is that when they shot a 323 right now they aren't satisfied because they know it's not too great," she said. "Where as last year shooting 323 was not too bad. We're going to get better but we need to shoot low numbers three times in a row, but at least we know we are capable of getting down there."
Jo Ann Brooks of Nebraska won the individual competition with a 222.
Wendy MacTurk placed seventh overall and was Penn State's low scorer with rounds of 82-76-80 for total of 238. Kristin Clark shot a 245 in her first collegiate competition of the year. Meg Young (246), Kerry Lee O'Leary (249), Kirsten Stone (250) and Cathy Gitzendanner (251) rounded out the Lady Lions scoring.
"We have to just concentrate on practicing our short game because that will knock strokes off our score," Clark said.
"Yeah, that's the key," MacTurk added.
Clark and MacTurk's performances have secured them spots for next weekend's Ohio State tournament. Other team members will compete this week in an intrasquad match to decide the three other positions.
