Iowa golf teams hit the road
The women will compete at the Chattanooga Classic while the men face the Florida Gators in an 18-hole match-play dual.
Iowa head coach Megan Menzel talks to Manuela Lizarazu during the Diane Thomason Invitational at Finkbine Golf Course on September 30th, 2018.The Hawkeyes placed 1st overall.
March 28, 2021
The Iowa men’s and women’s golf teams are back on the road for a pair of early-week events.
The men’s team will face the University of Florida in an 18-hole match play match in Naples, Florida, at Calusa Golf Club Monday while the women’s team competes at Black Creek Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the Chattanooga Classic Monday and Tuesday.
The men’s match against Florida is the Hawkeyes’ second match play event of the season, while the women will play 54 holes of stroke play competition against 14 other teams in Tennessee.
The Chattanooga Classic features teams from Iowa, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, and West Virginia. Iowa is the lone Big Ten program at the event.
Iowa’s women’s team is coming to Tennessee off a strong performance the last time out when the Hawkeyes placed second in a weather-shortened BYU Spring Classic two weeks ago in Hurricane, Utah.
RELATED: Second-place team finish puts Iowa women’s golf back on track
Heading into the third and final round of its most recent even that was canceled because of snow, the team was just three shots behind Texas Tech and had three players in the top-10 on the individual leaderboard.
Sophomore Jacque Galloway was in second place and six shots off the lead, freshman Klara Wildhaber was tied for sixth position, and sophomore Morgan Goldstein in a tie for ninth.
“We have a very hungry lineup,” Iowa head women’s golf coach Megan Menzel said following the BYU Spring Classic. “I think they are excited. I think they have all really bought into what they’re all working on. I think they all, individually, know what it’s going to take to go out and put three [good] rounds together and they really want to win a golf tournament.”
Today, Galloway, Wildhaber, and Goldstein will be joined by sophomore Lea Zeitler and junior Manuela Lizarazu. Lizarazu finished inside the top-20 in Utah in her first tournament action of the year, and Zeitler had an individual second-place finish earlier this year at the Rebel Beach Intercollegiate.
On the men’s side, Iowa’s match-play event against Florida will feature players from each team playing in 18-hole one-on-one matches. Each match will be worth one point, and the team with the most points will win the dual.
Senior Alex Schaake will lead the Hawkeyes, filling the team’s top roster spot this week, followed by sophomore Mac McClear, senior Benton Weinberg, junior Gonzalo Leal Montero, senior Jake Rowe, and senior Charles Jahn.
The Hawkeyes won the Spartan Collegiate in South Carolina in early March, using a flurry of late birdies to defeat both Notre Dame and Georgia Southern by a single shot.
But Florida is a formidable opponent for the 50th ranked Iowa squad.
The No. 11 Gators have won two team tournaments this season and are led by Sophomore Yuxin Lin, who’s ranked 37th individually. McClear moved up to 43rd in the individual national rankings after his individual triumph at the Spartan Collegiate.
Following this week’s events, the men’s team returns to the same course from April 4-6 to host the Calusa Cup and the women’s team competes next at the Indiana Spring Invitational from April 17-18.
