After the thick layer of snow covered the golf course last week, the men's golf team has been forced indoors to prepare for the 1991 Wofford Invitational Golf Tournament, to be held this weekend in South Carolina.

The team has been practicing in the Greenberg Sports Complex, using a lighter ball that resembles a golf ball but is hollow and feels somewhat like a thick ping-pong ball.

"It's so hard coming out of winter practice and then playing in a tournament," said Dan Vona, an experienced member of the team. He added that with the indoor practice and the artificial ball, "you don't get the real feel aspect."

However, despite the practice handicap that the weather has brought, Coach Mary Kennedy-Zierke said the team can do well if it brings with it a positive mindset.

"We have to focus on what we know haw to do," she said, ". . . golf is 90 percent mental."

Although no other District II team will be competing at the Wofford Tournament, several high-ranking teams will, including collegiate golf powers Clemson and Wake Forest.

Three Big Ten schools -- Illinois, Michigan State and Minnesota -- will also be among the 15 teams there. The golf team will compete in the Big Ten beginning next fall, and it can have an early glimpse at where it stands next to its future competitors.

Vona, William Smith, Matt Shiley, Jim Bohn and Brian Porta will be the five starters and the only members of the team to make the trip to the Carolina Country Club in South Carolina, where the tournament will be held. But, Kennedy-Zierke said, the permanent starters are not determined as of yet.

"I think we have a very good chance of making the finals this year," Kennedy-Zierke said, referring to the national tournament to be held later this spring at Poppy Hills in California, and she said she will continue to make changes until she finds the "right combination" that could get the Lions there.

Shiley, who led the team in its last tournament, admits that Penn State's relative preparation compared to the rest of the field will pose a challenge. "Because of the weather, we haven't been able to practice . . . they (many of the other teams in the tournament) have," he said.

But Shiley added regardless of the outcome the Wofford Tournament will be good for the team.

"The more tournaments we play in, the better we are," he said.