Men’s Golf Opens Fall Season at William H. Tucker Invitational – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Jim Brown begins 36th and final season at helm of the Buckeyes
COLUMBUS, Ohio The Ohio State men’s golf team travels to Albuquerque, N.M., to open its 2008-09 season at the 54th annual William H. Tucker Invitational, Sept. 26-27. The event, hosted by the University of New Mexico, will be played at the par 72, 7,403-yard UNM Championship Course.
The Tucker Invitational begins with a shotgun start at 7:30 a.m. (MT) Friday with teams playing 36 holes. The 16-team field will tee off for the final 18 holes Saturday once again at 7:30 a.m.
KEEPING TRACK
Live scoring for the entire event is available at www.golfstat.com, with links to the site on the Ohio State men’s golf schedule at www.OhioStateBuckeyes.com.
TOURNAMENT BASICS
Name: 54th Annual William H. Tucker Invitational
Course: UMN Championship Course (Par 72, 7,403 yards)
Field: 16 teams – Air Force, Arizona, BYU, Campbell, Colorado, Hawaii, UNLV, New Mexico (host), Ohio State, Pacific, Pepperdine, UTEP, UT-San Antonio, Texas State, Utah, Wyoming
Schedule:
Friday, Sept. 26: 36 holes
Saturday, Sept. 27: 18 holes
THE BUCKEYE LINEUP
Ohio State will have a mix of young and old when they tee it up in Albuquerque. Representing the Buckeyes will be senior Vaughn Snyder, juniors Patrick Simard and Brad Wright, sophomore Bo Hoag and, making his collegiate debut, freshman Michael Kinkopf.
TUCKER INVITATIONAL HISTORY
The Buckeyes are participating in one of the most historical tournaments when they play in the William H. Tucker Invitational. It is the second-oldest collegiate tournament in the nation behind the New England Intercollegiate Golf Tournament held annually in Brewster, Mass. The Tucker Invitational has been played at the UMN Championship Course since it officially opened in 1967.
LAST TIME WE WERE HERE
The Buckeyes opened last season at the William H. Tucker Invitational finishing fourth out 17 teams. In his first tournament as a collegian, then-freshman Bo Hoag shot a first round 67 on his way to a tie for ninth at even par 216.
THE COURSE HEAD
The Championship Course at the University of New Mexico is one of the finest college golf courses in the nation. Golf Digest has tabbed the course as one of the Top 25 public courses in the country. It has played host to the Men’s NCAA Championships on four occasions. It also hosted the 1987 women’s NCAA Tournament.
The par 72, 7,350-yard course features wide, rolling fairways. The greens are undulated and fast. Sagebrush and desert, two things that are unfamiliar in Ohio, will swallow up stray shots. High rough and water hazards are also present on the course.
ONE LAST TIME
The 2008-09 season will be the last for Ohio State head coach Jim Brown. It will be Brown’s 36th season at the helm of the Buckeyes and 42nd year overall coaching college golf.
Under his guidance, Ohio State has won a league-record 17 Big Ten championships. The Buckeyes won the conference crown every season from 1976-90, except for 1981 and ’88 when they were runners-up. He has produced 93 All-Big Ten honorees.
Brown, a native of Martins Ferry, Ohio, has served as the head coach for the Buckeyes since 1974. He is currently the winningest active coach in the NCAA with a career record of 5,609-1,791-43 and 157 tournament victories. In his 35 seasons, Brown has led the Buckeyes to 31 NCAA appearances, including the NCAA Central Regional in 2008, and 11 Top 10 NCAA championship finishes. The Buckeyes won the national championship, the second in program history, in 1979.
Individually, Brown has tutored an NCAA individual champion in Clark Burroughs (1985), 18 Big Ten medalists, 11 First Team All-America selections and 40 other All-America honorees. Chris Perry was named College Player of the Year in 1984 and Chris Smith earned both Big Ten Freshman of the Year (1988) and Player of the Year (1990) awards under Brown.
Brown’s student-athletes also have excelled in the classroom. The Buckeyes have received 11 All-America Scholar awards, 55 Academic All-Big Ten honors and 84 Ohio State Scholar-Athletes nods since the inception of both awards in 1987.
As a coach, Brown was named National Coach of the Year in 1979 and ’86, and District IV Coach of the Year in consecutive seasons from 1977-80 and again from 1982-87. He has earned Big Ten Coach of the Year laurels three times in 1995, ’96 and 2004.
HOAG LEADS BUCKEYES IN FALL QUALIFYING, AGAIN
Bo Hoag began his sophomore season by winning the team’s Jack Nicklaus Low Fall Qualifier Award for the second-consecutive season with an average of 69.25 in eight rounds. Hoag is just the sixth Buckeye to break with 70-mark in the 35 years of the award and the first since Colin Biles (69.4) in 2004. It was the third-lowest qualifying average with Doug Wade holding the all-time record at 68.6 in 2001.
Fall qualifying for the team began Sept. 12 and wrapped up last Sunday. The Buckeyes played eight rounds on the Scarlet Course and one round on the Gray Course at the OSU Golf Club with the highest score thrown out. Hoag, a native of Upper Arlington, Ohio, carded rounds of 69-72-68-70-70-70-69 with his score of 76 thrown out. He topped it off with a 66 on Gray.
MR. 59
Patrick Simard fired a round of 59 on Sept. 10 at The Ohio State University Golf Club’s Gray Course, to set the course record on the par 70, 5,800-yard course. The junior carded two eagles on Nos. 8 and 12 along with nine birdies, including three of par-3s and six on par-4s. He had two bogies, on Nos. 6 and 16. The previous Gray Course record was 60.
Simard, a native of Marbella, Spain, posted the low-round for the Buckeyes last season with a 65. He finished second on the team in stroke average last season with a 73.37.
SUMMER CHAMPIONS
Ohio State men’s golfers posted good results throughout the summer, highlighted by Vaughn Snyder winning the 102nd Ohio Amateur and Brad Wright capturing the 2008 Ohio Publinx championship.
Snyder won the Ohio Amateur in June with rounds of 71-71-70-71 at Findlay Country Club for a 1-under 283 total. The senior from Massillon, Ohio, was the only player to finish the tournament under par, holding off former teammate Kyle Coconis. The tournament was played under harsh conditions: high temperatures, thick rough, lightning-fast greens and nearly impossible pin positions.
In August, Wright, a redshirt-junior from Cambridge, Ohio, won the event shooting rounds of 71-66-73-68 for a total of 10-under 278 to defeat Tom Ballinger, the 2007 champion, by two strokes on the par 72, 7,071-yard Cooks Creek Golf Course. Wright redshirted the 2007-08 season after transferring to Ohio State from the University of Akron.
A SEASON AGO
Ohio State concluded the 2007-08 season with a 119-50-5 record and an appearance in the NCAA Central Regional hosted at the Buckeyes’ Scarlet Course. Ohio State placed in the Top 5 in six of 11 tournaments and the Top 10 in all but one. The Buckeyes return four of the five golfers who competed in the Central Regional. Among the returnees are senior Vaughn Snyder, junior Patrick Simard, and sophomores Bo Hoag, who was named Second Team All-Big Ten as a freshman, and Brad Smith. The four combined for 23 rounds under par and 11 rounds in the 60’s.
FRESH(MEN) FACES
The Buckeyes welcome four freshmen to the team this season. Two are central Ohio products: Michael Kinkopf and Alex Redfield. The out-of-state signees are Jamie Sindelar, of New York and Gary Quinn of Arizona. All four have elite tournament experience including playing in their state’s high school state tournament.
Michael Kinkopf, of Hilliard, was the top ranked golfer in the state of Ohio for the class of 2008. He led St. Charles to the state tournament in 2006 and 2007, both Top 5 finishes. In 2007, Kinkopf placed 14th individually.
Jamie Sindelar, from Horseheads, N.Y., is the son of former Buckeye All-American and current PGA Tour member Joey Sindelar. While attending Horseheads High School, Jamie finished 17th in the New York State Tournament this past spring and has twice won the New York Junior Championship. As a senior, he had a stroke average of 35.2.
Gary Quinn, of Anthem, Ariz., led Boulder Creek High School to a state championship in 2006. Boulder Creek advanced to the state tournament in three of Quinn’s four seasons. He earned all-state honors in 2006 with the third-lowest score in Arizona state high school history.
Alex Redfield, of Columbus, was part of the state championship Bishop Watterson team his freshman year. He finished tied for 21st individually.
UP NEXT
The Buckeyes return to action Oct. 6-7 when they compete in the Memphis Intercollegiate at the Colonial Country Club in Memphis, Tenn.
