College golf tournaments are usually held in sunny locales such as Puerto Rico and Florida, a long, long way from home for a golfer from somewhere like Minnesota.
So imagine how Grand Rapids, Minn., native Mike Christensen feels knowing that the 1999 NCAA Championships will be held in Minneapolis.
"That's huge for me," the junior said. "That's been my goal since I've been at Duke-to make it there. I'd make four [NCAA Championships] if I could. We made it my freshman year, didn't make it last year, but this was the one I was trying to focus on at the beginning of the year."
To earn a spot in the NCAAs, Christensen and the Blue Devils will first need to reach the regional tournament and finish in the top 11 there. After a solid fall season, they are in seventh place in their district, with the top eight teams advancing to the postseason.
"I'm excited for it," Christensen said of the Championships' location. "But at the same time you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself just because it's there."
As much as he would love to return home for the NCAA Championships, he has had little to do with Duke's current position. Christensen won a spot in the Blue Devils' lineup for just two of their first four tournaments and came in 43rd in the two he participated in. He finally regained his form in their final competition of the fall, tying his career best with a fifth-place finish at the Joe Nelson Invitational.
Christensen, the youngest state amateur champion in Minnesota history, put up the team's second-best stroke average as a freshman, trailing only senior All-American Jason Buha. He competed in every event for Duke and placed in the top 10 five times for a squad that reached its first NCAA Championships since '93.
With Buha's graduation, Christensen seemed poised to take over his role as the Blue Devils' No. 1 golfer. But both he and the team struggled last fall. Christensen posted only one top-30 finish, and although he bounced back to nab four top-15 showings in the spring, Duke was unable to recover from its early season woes.
"I said to my coach [Rod Myers] when we were about to go to Regionals my freshman year, 'We're going to make it all four years to the NCAA Championships,'" he said. "I obviously thought we were going to. People think I might have put too much pressure on myself my sophomore year with Jason gone. But I think golf's a game of momentum and I got into a little bit of a slump, and our team did, and before we knew it was too late and we couldn't make it to Regionals.
"That opens your eyes, makes you realize that every tournament is important. If you play a tournament going through the motions-I think the four of us who were [on the team] last year experienced that; we kind of take it personally right now. I want to work hardest in every practice because that was a disappointment for us."
If there's one area Christensen wants to work hard on, it's his patience. His driving is stronger than his putting, he said, but a missed putt often causes him to rush his next drive. He wouldn't mind being a little more like his cousin, East Tennessee State senior Dave Christensen.
In high school, Mike was the better golfer. Today, though, Dave is the first-team All-American in the family. Mike has had a lot of time to observe his cousin's game-the two travel to tournaments together over the summer and compete in the same district in college-and isn't surprised by Dave's disposition on the golf course.
"In life, he's very patient; he's very laid back," he said. "Nothing ever bothers him. And I'm a little more high strung than he is. You can see certain things in life that you don't know if something's bothering him. He'll just ignore it. I'll let you know if something's bothering me. We're completely different personalities."
Christensen hopes an improved mental game will help him match his cousin's individual success on the course. He arrived at Duke wanting to win at least one tournament title; halfway through his junior campaign, his best finish is fifth.
"More than anything a personal goal is to compete to win every event," Christensen said. "Not necessarily to win, but to compete to win. The more times you put yourself in that situation, the more times you're going to maybe win. I think a lot of times golfers, and I've been a victim to this, they play bad for nine holes and think the tournament's over.
"In college golf anything can happen. We're not professionals, and you can have a bad nine holes and still compete to win the tournament."
If Christensen is competing to win every event for the Blue Devils this spring, he could earn himself a return trip to the NCAA Championships and a homecoming to Minnesota.
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