Monday through Wednesday, the Illinois women’s golf team will head to East Lansing, Michigan for the NCAA women’s golf regional.

The Illini will play at Forest Akers West Golf Course, which is one of two golf courses run by Michigan State, the other being Forest Akers East. The two courses were redesigned in the 1990s, and both are named after a Michigan State alumnus.

The Illini last played in East Lansing in 2007.

At Michigan State, Illinois will see a competitive field of challengers. The Big Ten presence is sparse compared to other tournaments this season, with only three teams and one individual from the conference out of 18 teams and six individuals.

The Pac-12 conference is well represented at the tournament, with three teams making up three of the top four seeds. The No.1-seed Stanford finished fourth in the PAC-12 tournament, behind fellow No. 1-seed Southern California, No. 2-seed Arizona and Arizona State, respectively. No. 4-seed UCLA finished in sixth at the PAC-12 tournament.

No. 3-seed Kent State is somewhat familiar to Illinois. Kent State has played in several tournaments with Illinois and finished second at Illinois’ tournament last fall. The Illini finished third at the tournament, but have competed against the Golden Flashes at Tennessee, UCF and Ohio State.

Despite being in the same conference as the No. 5-seed Michigan State, Illinois didn’t play in the same tournament as the Spartans until the spring. Like Kent State, Illinois competed against Michigan State at Central Florida in February. The Illini also played a similar spring tournament schedule to the Spartans, with both teams playing at College of Charleston, Clemson and Ohio State earlier this spring.

Even though Illinois hasn’t played at Michigan State since before the iPad first came out, the competition hosts some familiar foes.

@claire_obrien43

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