This weekend, the Penn State men's golf team will be in Lake Forest, Ill., to compete in the 2006 Big Ten Championships. Northwestern will play host to 10 other Big Ten schools at the Conway Farms Golf Club.

This year marks the 87th edition of the tournament and the first time in 50 years that Northwestern will be the home team.

The 72-hole event will consist of 36 holes today and 18 tomorrow and Sunday. The first golfers will tee off at 8 this morning.

For the Nittany Lions, who made the trip to Illinois yesterday to get in a practice round, the goal is to end an up-and-down season on a high note. They played well at home last week during the Rutherford Intercollegiate tournament, and hope that their encouraging fourth-place finish will lead to more success as the championship gets underway.

"We got some positive momentum going heading into Big Tens," freshman Mitch Van Zelfden said. "If we play as well as we did last weekend, we can definitely have a good finish."

There was a time earlier in the season when such talk would have seemed unrealistic for this group of golfers. It took them a while to get their games back to peak performance after a long winter away from the course.

During the first few events of the spring, the rust was obvious. Penn State posted a 14th-place finish and three 15th-place finishes.

Last weekend's outing may have been what the team needed to get things going again, and it could not have come at a better time.

So what is it the golfers did to turn their games around?

"I don't think we did anything differently," Van Zelfden said. "We just kept our heads together and played our games."

That sounds simple enough, although playing on the home course couldn't have hurt. If Penn State can continue to play that way, a good score at the Big Ten Championships may not be all that awaits them.

A potential berth into the NCAA Regional could be in store, as well. But there is still some work to do for that to happen.

"We were hoping that if we won [the Rutherford Intercollegiate], it would secure our spot in the NCAAs this year," senior Greg Pieczynski said. "But now it's up to the committee. If we can do well at the Big Ten Championship that should help us out."

If nothing else, this weekend will definitely be a measuring stick for how far the Lions have come this season.