Indiana University Athletics
Inside The Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge
10/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Oct. 18, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Indiana University men's golf team heads off to the west coast for the Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge on Monday, Oct. 23, and Tuesday, Oct. 24. The tournament consists of three rounds, with 36 holes played on Monday and the final 18 holes taking place on Tuesday. It is co-hosted by the University of Oregon and Northwestern University and will take place at Pacific Dunes Golf Course in Bandon, Ore.
Illinois, Michigan State, Minnesota and Wisconsin, in addition to Indiana and Northwestern, will represent the Big Ten. Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC and Washington, along with Oregon, will round out the tournament field from the Pac-10. Teams will play in groups of three and a blind draw will determine the pairings. Groups will consist of either two Pac-10 teams and one Big Ten team or two Big Ten teams and one Pac-10 squad. For the conference challenge portion of the tournament, each conference will count its lowest five team scores following each round.
Tournament play begins Monday with a shotgun start at 11 a.m. (ET) and the second round will follow the first. On Tuesday, the final round will commence with a shotgun start at 11 a.m.
Pacific Dunes was designed by Tom Doak and opened for play in 2001. A part of the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Pacific Dunes was ranked No. 1 in Golf Magazine's "Top 100 You Can Play in 2006," as well as earning the No. 2 spot on Golf Week's "Best Modern Courses" list that same year. In 2005, Golf Magazine named the course the No. 8 layout in the United States and No. 13 layout in the world in its annual ranking of the "Top 100" and Golf Digest named Pacific Dunes No. 4 on its list of the "100 Greatest Public Courses."
The field consists of nine teams ranked in the top-50, including UCLA, which is the No. 1 team in the nation according to the most recent GolfStat poll. Stanford follows at No. 5 and USC is at No. 13. Minnesota is the highest-ranked Big Ten team in the field at No. 28, while Washington is at No. 36, Wisconsin is at No. 38, Michigan State is No. 41, Northwestern follows at No. 42 and Indiana rounds out the ranked members of the field at No. 48.
In 2005, the Hoosiers finished in 11th place with a total of 886 (293-294-299) in the tournament, which was held at Glen Club in Chicago. Drew Allenpach led the Hoosiers, finishing in a tie for 18th after carding a 219 (72-70-77). Northwestern took home the tournament title with a total of 860.
