The men’s golf team is gearing up for two invitationals this week with the Elmhurst Spring Invitational on Thursday and the Scot-Fire Classic on Saturday and Sunday.
The Elmhurst Spring Invitational will be held in Oak Brook, Ill. at the Oak Brook Country Club ,and the Scot-Fire Classic will be held in Galesburg, Ill. at the Soangetaha Country Club, also known as Gibson Woods.
Senior David Ferlmann is experienced with both of the courses and provided a layout of what to expect.
“The course for the Elmhurst Invitational is tight in spots, but if you are patient and are able to plot your way around the golf course you can put up a good score,” Ferlmann said. “The course for the Scot-Fire Classic is very straight forward. If you can hit fairways out there, you are going to post a low score.”
Head coach Paul Del Vecchio said his team is ready for these two invitationals.
“I think we are in good shape,” Del Vecchio said. “The Scot-Fire is at Gibson Woods, where we have one senior in the top five along with three juniors. Between the four of these guys, they’ve played Gibson Woods quite a bit.”
Del Vecchio also said the team has done well in the past at these courses. According to the Augustana sports information website, the Vikings finished in seventh out of 14 teams in 2014 and 12th out of 19 teams in 2015.
The Elmhurst Spring Invitational will be a good chance for the men to scope out their competition for the CCIW Conference Tournament that will be held on April 28-30. According to Del Vecchio, Elmhurst is a good meet for the team, because it will be a “good mix of teams playing” and feature CCIW rivals such as North Central, Carthage and North Park.
One of the reasons for having two invites so close to each other is preparaing for the end of the season.
“I wanted to get us playing as much as possible before our conference tournament,” Del Vecchio said. “The following Thursday is the first day of conference, so at least we can get three tournament rounds there (at this weekend’s invitationals).”
The men’s team will be looking to five members of their team to score during these two invitationals. Some of the top five have been Ferlmann, junior Tanner Obal, sophomore Gabe Askam and freshman Alex Sierra.
Askam led the way for the Vikings this past weekend at the Weist Foundation Classic in Decatur, Ill. with a two-day score of 152. Right behind Askam was Ferlmann and Sierra, who both finished with individual two-day scores of 153. The Vikings ultimately finished 11th out of 18 teams and with a score of 303, their second best score this year.
With a little over two weeks left before the CCIW tournament, Ferlmann said the next two weeks are crucial.
“Two more weeks is all we have,” Ferlmann said. “We need to put in all the work we can to get to the point where we want to be.”