TOWN OF ERIN — The large bronze clover overlooking the front nine at Erin Hills is as much a sign of history as it is a warning.
The silver letters reading ’80th U.S. Women’s Open Championship’ engraved on the bottom embody the course’s championship pedigree and toughness. On Sunday at the Marquette Intercollegiate, it gave players everything it had and more.
Despite knowledge of Erin Hills — Marquette’s played all but two of its signature events there, and the team has teed-off there six other times this season — wind gusts of 35+ mph combined with a difficult course setup gave the Golden Eagle golfers struggles.
“The back nine played a lot tougher than the front nine today,” junior Ryan Banas said. “It was a grind. You just had to get the right breaks.”
Head coach Steve Bailey said that the familiarity of the course teaches them where to aim and, almost more importantly, where not to miss. But on Sunday, those past experiences could only help his team prepare so much.
“It’s definitely a different golf course today,” Bailey said, “one we haven’t seen.”
The course presents its unforgiving moments and challenges from scattered bunkers to drastic elevation changes — it’s maybe easier to get a hole in one than find a flat lie — and thick fescue. Yet, with all those roadblocks, it is one of the more historic and beautiful monsters a golfer could experience.
During the practice round on Saturday, October 4, Bailey had Banas and the team take in the moment on the 10th tee, a 478-yard par four.
“Coach said that no matter your score, have a little perspective this week,” Banas said. “You can have a bad day, but it will never be too bad of a day when you are out at Erin Hills.”
Assistant coach Josh Robinson, who played in the 2019, 2021 and 2023 Marquette Intercollegiate at Erin Hills, said the access the team has to the course is program altering.
“We are very fortunate to be able to come to a place like this,” Robinson said. “We make sure our guys don’t take it for granted, but being able to go and practice and play before even stepping foot on property really helps us navigate what we need to do for when it comes to tournament time.”
Robinson said using knowledge to overcome what the course could present is a strong advantage.
“Mentally preparing for what’s to come and building more strategy with that and not deviating if it goes wrong is the biggest thing,” Robinson said. “Out here, you know you are going to have a bogey and that’s where the grittiness comes in.”
After the first day of play, Marquette tied-for-seventh with Rutgers University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Wisconsin at 25-over-par. Sophomore Vincent Cervantes is the Golden Eagles’ leading individual after a four-over-par 76. His three birdies, four bogeys and a triple-bogey were good for 10th place on the leaderboard.
On Monday, the wind died down and took high scores with it.
Marquette improved by 15 shots, led by an even-par 72 from junior Mason Schmidtke. His five birdies, three bogeys and a double bogey helped him jump 21 spots to tied-for-16th on the individual leaderboard.
Schmidtke said the team will have to make some noise amongst a jumbled leaderboard in the final round on Tuesday.
“We have a little bit more of an advantage tomorrow because we can definitely chase on this golf course,” Schmidtke said. “We have to chase and beat as many teams as we can.”
The team is currently 16 shots back of the leaders, Clemson University, but Banas said the structure of team golf still means it’s anyone’s game.
“If you have five guys in the lineup and four of the five have a good day tomorrow, you can make a massive move, and we’ve seen that at a bunch of tournaments,” Banas said.
This story was written by Trevor Hilson. He can be reached at trevor.hilson@marquette.edu or @hilsontrevor on Twitter/X.