Coming off a fourth place finish at the Chicago State Invitational, the Eastern men’s golf team will get a chance to play again this Friday in the DePaul Fall Invitational.

The Panthers will compete at Ruffled Feathers Golf Course in Lemont. This will be Eastern’s second consecutive tournament in the Chicagoland area.

The Panthers are looking to bounce back from their fourth place finish out of five teams by making sure they make the most out of their preparation time, sophomore Austin Sproles said.

The team only has two days to prepare for the DePaul Invitational. Because ofthe lack of preparation time, the team still does not know which five players are going to be traveling to Lemont.

“We just got back, so we don’t have long to prepare,” Sproles said. “We are still unsure of who is traveling.”

Sproles also said the team must quickly forget about their performance at Chicago State and make sure they are focused on playing well at DePaul.

“We just need to focus on DePaul,” he said. “You have to have a short memory in golf. We need to be more focused at Ruffled Feathers; it’s a much different course.”

Ruffled Feathers is a course that does present many challenges for the Panthers. It’s different from the courses they’ve played at so far.

The course is known for its challenging collection of par three holes and Sproles knows the course will have plenty of other challenges in store for Eastern as well. He also said that it’s possible to play well if the team executes in certain areas of the game.

“You need to keep the ball in play there,” he said. “There’s more water and some out of bounds areas. And the par threes are very difficult. You can score well, though with good ball striking and short game.”

The Panthers will start the DePaul Invitational off with a practice round on Friday morning and follow with competitive play on Saturday and Sunday.

Dan Hildebrandt can be reached at 581-2812 or djhildebrandt@eiu.edu.