Exposure, experience and depth have put the NIU men’s golf team back on the map in 2007.

Depth is an essential component to being competitive on the links, and for the past few seasons, the NIU men’s golf team lacked just that.

But things have changed this season, NIU now can count on quality scores out of the No. 3 and No. 4 spots in the line-up.

Last year, underclassmen were forced to see a lot of action. That exposure has panned out thus far for NIU in 2007. Led by sophomore Andrew Frame’s individual fifth place finish, NIU tied for second place collectively out of 12 teams on Tuesday at the Belmont Fall Shootout in Nashville, Tenn. Frame finished tied for fifth but was only one shot away from the eventual winner.

“We were real young last year,” head coach John Cleary said. “We had a good recruiting class and they played a lot.”

Out of the five starters per team for each tournament, four of them were freshman for the Huskies last year. For those who don’t follow collegiate golf, it would be like the NIU basketball team with four freshman starters thrown in against some of the best competition in the country.

“It’s always been a matter of coming up with a fourth scorer,” Frame said. “This year a lot of guys have stepped up and played awesome.”

With golf being such an individual sport, it’s hard to measure success. October 7 and 8, NIU finished in eighth place at a tournament in Glencoe, Ill. against some of the top programs in the country.

“That may not look like a very good finish,” Cleary said. “But there were 13 quality teams there. It’s hard to put your finger on success. In golf, we don’t play defense. We can’t go out and try and stop other teams.”

Even with the rise of the golf program at NIU, Cleary doesn’t want to settle for simply improving.

“Finishing second at a tournament is great,” Cleary said “But we’d like to win some tournaments.”

The recent success has given the team the confidence that eluded them last year.

The internal competition has forced players to improve their game if they want to hold onto a tightly contested starting spot – a welcome problem for Cleary.

“It’s one of the deeper teams I’ve had,” said the sixth-year head coach. “[Greg] Bauman was the fifth man on the team and finished in the top 10 in Nashville.”

Cleary said it’s hard to measure success in golf, but he has a goal for his team before the fall season concludes. With the final fall outing looming, Cleary and the NIU golfers would like to measure their success by earning a tournament victory.