Midway through the Iowa Conference Championships, the men’s golf team is in fifth place, but it also is in a real good position to climb the standings going into the final 36 holes.

The Duhawks combined to shoot 46-over-par in their first two rounds of the tournament, and they are just 12 strokes behind first-place Central College. 

Coach Jeremy Hawkins is content with where his team sits going into the final two rounds this weekend at Centennial Oaks, Wartburg College’s home course in Waverly.

“I am fairly happy with the team’s performance,” Hawkins said. “We gave away a few unnecessary strokes again this weekend, and ended up digging ourselves a pretty good hole after Friday’s play.  I was very happy about Saturday’s score.”

The Duhawks have 36 holes to get back those shots that they missed in the first day of the tournament. The Duhawks will be focused on trying to cut into Central College’s lead , but they also will be keeping their eye on Buena Vista.

“Central is always steady, so you can expect low scores from them,” Hawkins said. “Buena Vista University, who is two strokes ahead of us, had a great day Friday and a good day Saturday.” 

Now Loras looks to show that they can play better on a different course. According to Hawkins, Centennial Oaks is a very open course, whereas Finkbine is lined with trees.  He sees the weather and how his team responds to the conditions as playing a big role in the outcome.

Three weeks ago, the Loras men played at Centennial Oaks during the Wartburg College Invite, and the Duhawks placed 12th out of 21 teams. Senior Mark Dolphin had a very good day, shooting 7-over-par for the tournament.

Dolphin finds himself going into this weekend in a similar situation after again shooting just 7-over-par for the first 36 holes of the tournament. Hawkins liked what he saw out of his captain this past weekend.

“He needed to have a round like he did on Saturday,” he said of Dolphin. “He hit a ton of fairways and greens on Saturday, and when you hit that many greens and you continue to give yourself birdie opportunities, they will eventually start to fall.  He made one mistake during his round, or he could have come in even lower. But it was certainly a great round.”

The rest of the team played solid rounds as well. Beau Brandt not only made the team’s cut to play in the championship but showed off a swing that he has been working on all spring, as well as a strong short game, to place 11th with a +12. Sam Herrmann and Andrew Schroeder both shot +14 and tied for 16th. Steve Stark rounded out the group with a +22.

Hawkins makes it clear that it is a very tight race right now, and that Loras needs to take advantage of the other teams’ mistakes.

“This weekend, we need to continue to work on managing our round,” he said. “We still have guys making poor decisions out there, and those couple of shots could be the difference of contending for the conference title, or finishing in the back half of the tournament.”