In preparing for Monday's first round of the Turtle Bay Resort College Invitational in Kahuku, Oahu, the Cal women's golf team has had some time to work on its tan.

"I'm sitting here watching the surfers on the North Shore," coach Nancy McDaniel said.

The No. 10 Bears, however, must adopt a business-like attitude when stepping onto a course that presents ample challenges for an impressive field of teams.

"We need to get back into tournament mode and off the beach," McDaniel said.

Playing against top-tier opponents in the last tournament of the fall campaign, Cal recognizes the challenge ahead while remaining confident.

"Our biggest competition will be USC, UCLA, Washington and Kansas State, which beat us at Stanford, but a lot of teams are right there," McDaniel said. "We don't want to lose ground on them, but if we don't keep our heads screwed on we will.

"We have winning in mind. A top-three performance would be a really good finish. I'm looking forward to a good week of solid golf."

Many factors will come into producing the standard of play that McDaniel expects from her team, which has played in Hawaii before but never on this course.

"Wind definitely comes into play here, so if we better bring our wind game or else we'll be in the middle of the pack," McDaniel said.

Additionally, Cal faces the challenge of playing two courses over the 54-hole tournament. Monday and Tuesday's rounds will be played on the Palmer Course at the Turtle Bay Resort, while Wednesday's final round will tee off on the George Fazio Course.

Each is over 6,000 yards with par set at 72, requiring the Bears to be prepared for the challenges of both courses.

With a solid lineup including All-American and No. 19-ranked Pia Halbig and 34th-ranked Joanne Lee, McDaniel doesn't expect to encounter too many problems.

Perhaps the biggest struggle for Cal will be rebounding from last month's Stanford Invitational, where the team finished tied for 10th place.

"It's going to be interesting to see how we respond after Stanford," she said. "We got beat up there, no doubt about it."

This week, then, presents the Bears with an opportunity to display what caliber of team they are and find out whether or not they deserve their lofty national ranking. McDaniel is as curious as any.

"We need to find out if we will be a team that bounces back or will we come out flat," McDaniel said. "Our hope is that we'll be really good for competition after the practices that we've had all week."

Tags: CAL WOMEN'S GOLF, NANCY MCDANIEL, PIA HALBIG, TURTLE BAY RESORT COLLEGE INVITATIONAL