With three tournaments under its belt and only three more to go, the Penn State women's golf team is not where it had hoped to be halfway through the season, but the team is ready to start with a clean slate.

Five golfers from Penn State will participate in the Indiana Invitational, hosted by Indiana University, today at the Crooked Stick golf course in Carmel, Ind. The Nittany Lions will face 16 other schools, including Big Ten powerhouse, Michigan State. Representing Penn State will be seniors Maggie Lester and Evelyn Paik, juniors Christin Pacacha and Megan Padua, and freshman Katherine Murphy.

Cooler temperatures and early morning frost prevented the teams from practicing on the course over the weekend, but they were able to walk around and get a feel for the grounds.

"This is a great venue and it's really exciting to be here," senior Christin Pacacha said.

Pacacha said the team is lucky to have an opportunity to play on this course, adding that schools like Oregon and Texas, who normally don't come to this event, have made the trip especially because of the venue.

Frost delays have also shortened the tournament -- which originally consisted of 36 holes on Monday and 18 on Tuesday -- to 18 holes on both Monday and Tuesday.

With the weather issues and the pace of spring in general, Pacacha said the first half of the season has been a whirlwind for the team.

"I can't believe we already have three tournaments under our belt," she said.

With the end-of-semester workload and constantly being away for tournaments, the season flew by, leaving the Nittany Lions with just two tournaments before the Big Ten Championships.

As the temperatures warmed up last week, the team started practicing on the blue course for the first part of the week.

"It's nice to be able to play at our home course," Pacacha said. "Instead of hitting balls, we're actually playing rounds, which have been really helping us get back into the swing of things."

According to Pacacha, the team had great goals and objectives coming to the spring season, but the first three tournaments didn't pan out the way it wanted.

"We are making a collective effort to start over," she said. "We can still have a strong finish and build on that next year."

This is also the last season Paik and Lester will play college golf, so the team would like to give them a senior year to remember.

"They want to go out on a positive note," Pacacha said. "And we want to enjoy the last three tournaments we have left together."