Planes, gains and automobiles: Coach Mike Wilson says ‘we still have hope’ after his Badgers rally to win The Invitational, meander home | NCAA Division 1

As impressive as its come-from-behind victory at The Invitational at The Ford might have been Tuesday in Richmond Hills, Ga., the University of Wisconsin men’s golf team might one day look back on its journey back to Madison as a unique bonding experience that brought its individual parts closer together.

Let’s start with the Badgers’ comeback. They began the final round of the eight-team event 12 strokes behind perennial power Wake Forest, caught the Demon Deacons by the turn and escaped with a one-shot victory thanks to the 1-2 finish of Cameron Huss of Kenosha and Blake Wisdom of Lake Geneva.

Escaped being the operative word. Huss, the last of the five golfers in UW’s starting lineup, tapped in for a par and his second consecutive round of 6-under-par 66 at about 2 p.m. EST with the team scheduled to leave from nearby Savannah at 4:45 p.m. on its way to O’Hare Field in Chicago where it was to have caught a connecting flight to Madison.

The Badgers, however, were in the second of three waves of teams with Wake Forest in the wave behind them. To complicate the logistics, junior Graham Moody — competing as an individual — was in the second of three groups of extra golfers assigned tee times behind the final wave of team golfers.

“We wanted to stay and like watch all of it, obviously and see if we won and could accept a trophy,” Wisdom said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “By the time we went to our host family’s house and got all our stuff, we were running to the airport. We were all smashed into the car on the way to the airport, refreshing the live scoring every five seconds to see if we’d won.”

They got the word from coach Mike Wilson, who remained at the course with Moody while assistant coach Ross Thomson shuttled the other five golfers to the airport. But, even then, there was no time for UW to start celebrating.

“He finished like 45 minutes after we did,” Wisdom said. “They thought they for sure were going to miss the flight. (Wilson) was on the 18th green watching the whole thing go down. We were in the car and were on the interstate and Wilson is whispering on the phone to us because he’s trying to stay quiet ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ … They got to the airport ticket counter at 3:59 (p.m.) and the bag service stopped at 4 so they got it within a minute to catch the flight.”

When the team arrived in Chicago, however, the area was under a tornado warning so, upon landing, passengers were ordered to seek shelter in the Terminal 1 tunnel that connects the United Airlines B and C concourses. 

“It was a mess,” Wisdom said. “By the time we got out, we were delayed to 11:30 (p.m.) so we ended up getting rental cars. When we got to Madison, it was 1 a.m. so we didn’t get our bags until (Wednesday) morning.”

The tools of their trade are going to come in handy over the final two-plus months of the season if they work as well as they did in Georgia.

Huss led a record-setting effort with his 69-66-66 card that gave him his first collegiate victory. His 15-under 201 total gave him a five-stroke victory over Wisdom, bettered his previous best for 54 holes by five strokes and is the second-best 54-hole effort in program history behind the 200 that Ben Walter (65-65-70) shot in winning the 1994 Big Ten Conference Championship at the University of Michigan GC in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“I was just drawing on some of last summer’s stuff, too,” said Huss, who won the Ray Fischer and Wisconsin State Open around a runner-up finish at the Wisconsin State Amateur. “Playing with the lead, I just felt more comfortable out there. It was an interesting experience, too, because I knew with a couple of holes left that I had big lead myself, but I saw the team was in a dogfight with Wake Forest.

“It was one of those things where yeah, I had a big lead, but (I) kind of had to keep my foot on the gas, trying to make some birdies.”

After a bogey at the par-4 15th hole, Huss finished par-birdie-par. By that point, he’d done his damage with six birdies over his first 14 holes, including three over the first five holes of the back nine, a stretch he played in 14-under for the week with 12 birdies and an eagle.

“That golf course is really a tale of two nines,” Huss said, describing the front as being tree-lined and the back wide-open where he could “get after it,” which is what he did. “I was pretty confident in my wedge play all week; I kept hitting really solid wedge shots to inside 10 feet. And then I had the putter rolling, too.

“I think it was the second round. I was playing with (Notre Dame’s) Palmer Jackson and I made three straight 30-footers. By the time the third one went in, I looked at him and he was just laughing. He’s like ‘Just keep rolling them in; it’s fun to watch.’ It’s one of those things in golf where it doesn’t happen much, but sometimes when you ride that wave with the putter you’ve got to keep it hot.”

Wisdom rode a hot putter in the second round to a 7-under 65, giving him a share of the third-lowest single round in program history. His putter wasn’t as cooperative in the final round, but it did help him bounce back from a pair of early bogeys with four birdies over his next 11 holes and make a 12-foot birdie putt on his final hole that proved to be the difference between UW and Wake Forest.

UW counted Huss’ 66, a 68 from Spencer Turtz (T-25), a 70 from Jacob Beckman (T-33) and the 71 from Wisdom — tossing a 72 from Coalter Smith (T-38) — in its closing 274 that broke the Badgers’ single-round scoring record (276 set at the 2004 Northern Intercollegiate) and, at 24-under 840, toppled the 54-hole scoring mark (841 at the 2018 Fighting Irish Classic). 

“I didn’t really know that we were super-close at that point,” Wisdom said. “I thought we had kind of a big lead. I was like ‘I just want to make this.’ It turned out to be a pretty big putt.”

Indeed, the victory moved UW back into the top 100 in the NCAA Division I rankings at No. 94. That’s the good news. 

The bad news is the Badgers’ head-to-head record this season sits at 31-55-1, according to NCAA statistics. NCAA rules require teams to have at least a .500 record to be considered for at-large berths to the NCAA regionals.

UW only has three more events on its schedule — The Schenkel Invitational (March 15-17), the Hawkeye Invitational (April 13-14) and the Big Ten Conference Championship (April 26-28), which last year had a combined 41 teams. That means the Badgers, who qualified for an NCAA Regional a year ago for the first time in 15 years, must finish no worse than 32-7 in those events to reach .500.

“I think if we get to .500, we have a chance,” said Wilson, whose team went 19-7 against fields at The Schenkel (sixth) and the Big Ten Championship (T-4) but played the Boilermaker Invitational (9-3) in lieu of Iowa ahead of the conference championship a year ago. “Obviously, you don’t have a chance if you don’t get to .500, but we get there — I’ve been punching the numbers — we would have a chance. Big Tens will be worth a lot. The Schenkel is worth a lot. Iowa probably won’t be worth as much, but we need to get wins.

“My expectations are to make (the NCAA regional) every year. The way I look at it, we still have hope. We’re still in the game. And, heck, if we play like we did this week, we could win Big Tens.”