Gutty effort puts Northwestern women in NCAA golf spotlight again

Last year the Northwestern women's team, with only one senior, marched all the way to the NCAA championship match at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.

A year later, coach Emily Fletcher says her team will "try to do it again.'"

The Wildcats made the 24-team field for this year's NCAA championship, which tees off Friday at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Okla. Over the season, though, NU hasn't performed at the level of a team with four returning players.

"We've struggled," Fletcher admitted. "We were a little inconsistent. It's been a challenge living up to expectations.''

That applies to Hannah Kim, a stalwart on the NCAA runner-up team that lost the title match to Arizona State.

"She's had a slightly off year after being a trailblazer for us her first three years," said Fletcher.

This year's team barely squeaked into the finals, but Kim was a key reason the Wildcats made it at all. NU got off to a slow start in last week's 54-hole regional tournament at University Ridge in Madison, Wis. The Wildcats needed to finish in the top six teams to make the finals, and they stood ninth after the first round. They posted the second-best showing in Round 2 to climb to a tie for sixth with Illinois and Ohio State. That set the stage for a tension-packed final round.

Kim was 4-over-par for her first nine holes but was 2-under on what could have been her last nine as a college player, and that helped NU earn the No. 6 spot. Kim wasn't the star in the gutty team effort, but her finish was a huge help. The key player was sophomore Brooke Riley. She wasn't on the NCAA runner-up team as a freshman but got her chance after Kacie Komoto graduated. Komoto turned pro, tried unsuccessfully to qualify for the Japan tour and now will try the LPGA's Symetra circuit.

Riley has already made it at the collegiate level. She made eight birdies and shot a 6-under-par 66 in the heat of the regional's third round. That was the second-best postseason round in NU history and her three-day total of 7-under 209 tied for fourth individually.

"She was tremendous," said Fletcher. "She pretty much kept us in it, but it was a collective effort."

Joining Riley and Kim on NU's sixth straight NCAA finalist team are senior Sarah Cho and juniors Stephanie Lau and Janet Mao. They'll start the competition at Karsten Creek, Oklahoma State's home course on Friday. All the teams will compete over 54 holes of stroke play, then the top 15 teams will compete in stroke play.

After the 72 holes of stroke play, the top eight teams will determine the champion via match play. The Golf Channel will cover the last three days of the event, which ends May 23.

Now it's the men's turn

Like their women's teams, the Northwestern and Illinois men's team will battle in their regional at Ohio State's Scarlet Course. The regional ends today with the top five teams heading to the NCAA finals at Karsten Creek following the women's tournament.

Illinois has qualified for the match play portion in seven of the past eight NCAA finals but never won it all - a fact not lost on two-time Big Ten individual champion Nick Hardy, who turns pro at the Rust-Oleum Championship when his collegiate career is done.

"I'm really excited," said Hardy, a Northbrook native. "Finishing with my team should really be fun. We're playing well at the right time."

While Illinois has won eight of the past nine Big Ten men's titles, Northwestern has been a consistent contender. NU has qualified for NCAA regionals nine times in the past 10 years.

Kemper is good to Chaussard

Garrett Chaussard, a four-year letterman for the Illini before to his graduation in 2005, won his first major Illinois PGA title at Kemper Lakes last week. He took the 67th IPGA Match Play crown, beating frequent practice partner Chris Green of Glen View Club 3 and 2 in the final.

"Playing 36 holes three days in a row, it was a relief to get it over with and I'm glad I survived,'' said Chaussard, the director of instruction at Skokie Country Club in Glencoe after holding similar jobs at Cog Hill and Chicago Highlands.

Unlike previous IPGA Match Plays, the tournament shared the course with workers preparing the Kildeer layout for next month's KPMG Women's PGA Championship.

"There was constant activity out there," said Chaussard. "They're definitely doing some bunker work. Like all our courses they're coming out of a real late spring, but that course is in really great shape."

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