For Ball State University students and Muncie residents, playing golf at the Delaware Country Club is usually a luxury. But when the Ball State men's golf team uses the facility for practice and qualifying it is all about business.
After nearly a four-month offseason, the Cardinals will return to the green Saturday at the Wolf Run Intercollegiate in Zionsville. The 54-hole tournament will also feature Indiana University and the University of Illinois.
Since the start of school, coach Mike Fleck has been pleased by his team's practices.
"It's been a pretty productive couple of weeks," Fleck said. "We have been able to get away from Muncie and travel to other unfamiliar local courses for practice. This has allowed us to get the best five guys ready for our first tournament."
Competing for Ball State will be Ross Cosat, Anthony Novak, Eric Steger, Eric Skillman and freshman Brodie Williams.
While the Cardinals have not competed in a competitive tournament since May, players spent the summer individually working on their game. Junior Eric Steger had the opportunity to play in the U.S. Amateur Championships Aug. 24-30.
After the first two rounds, Steger was tied for ninth place out of 312 golfers. Although he was defeated during the first round of match play, he will use the experience to help Ball State.
"The experience was awesome," Steger said. "The course was really hard, but it was cool to play with some of the best in the world. It was my first amateur tournament so it was nice to see that I could play with those guys."
Fleck wants to see that kind of success this weekend.
"The tournament field will be good from top to bottom," Fleck said. "We just have to play good solid team golf if we want to be competitive. Steger did a heck of a job at the amateur and that will give him confidence to continue playing well. The guys need to keep doing what they are doing and continue the success they had in the summer."
In addition to veterans like Steger, who played on the national stage, Williams has made an immediate contribution to the team by qualifying for Saturday's tournament.
"Practice has been going well," Steger said. "We have all just been trying to get back into the swing of things with golf and school. It's huge that the freshmen are playing though. It's nice to see them not acting like freshmen and playing good golf. It's awesome that Brodie is going with us, and I think we are ready to play well and have fun."
The first 36 holes will be played Saturday with the remaining 18 on Sunday.
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