Photo by WKU Athletics
It will have been almost exactly a month since WKU Hilltopper Golf completed a tournament round when the team tees off this week in Georgia State’s Autotrader Collegiate Classic.
After getting rained out at an event in Cincinnati, the Hilltoppers return to the course in competition for the first time since completing the Louisville Cardinals Challenge on Sept. 16.
“I felt like we were carrying good momentum into the Cincinnati event, so it was disappointing to have that event rained out,” WKU head coach Chan Metts said. “When you are playing well you always want to compete so you can carry over that confidence and momentum into the next event. With the big break since Cincinnati, we have been trying to make sure we are competing in practice and having the guys under the gun as much as possible.”
Redshirt senior Billy Tom Sargent, senior Stuart Easton, junior Tom Bevington, sophomore Crimson Callahan and redshirt freshman Dawson McDaniel will represent the Hilltoppers in team competition this week at the par-72, 6,706-yard Berkeley Hills Country Club in Duluth, Ga. Redshirt junior Linus Lo will participate as an individual.
The 12 competing teams will play 36 holes Monday, starting at 7:30 a.m. CT with a shotgun start, before completing the final round Tuesday.
While the course is a new one for the Hilltoppers, it’s familiar to the first-year coach Metts – a Georgia native, former collegiate player in the state and former assistant coach at Georgia Southern.
“We’re going out a day early in order to get a little extra work in,” Metts said. “Berkeley Hills has Bermuda greens, and we have been lucky enough to get on at Indian Hills Country Club (in Bowling Green), which has new Bermuda greens, over the last two weeks to help speed up that transition for us.”
In WKU’s last full event in Louisville, the Hilltoppers tied for seventh in a field that featured six top-50 programs. The Tops shot a three-day total of 859 (277-294-288) – less than five strokes from being one of the program’s top-10 tallies in the last 30-plus years.
All six golfers who’ve competed for WKU so far this season have notched a round of 70 or better, including four with a round of 69 or better.
Courtesy of WKU Athletics
