Tag: 2023 NGI

NGI college golf: Ball State and Washington State needed conference heroics to be postseason eligible. Here’s how they did it

“We felt like we had a team, and were playing with some momentum, that was capable of winning.”

Mike Fleck, the longtime men’s golf coach at Ball State, has been talking about Golfweek’s National Golf Invitational all spring. As he coached his players over the .500 hurdle, he wanted them to understand what opportunities lay on the other side.

Postseason eligibility, for the NCAA and NGI, is contingent upon a team finishing the regular season with a winning record. The NGI decided to adopt that same postseason guideline to stay consistent regarding a team playing after its conference championship. Fleck spoke to his men frequently about the importance of getting into a postseason-eligible position, especially now that a new opportunity is on the table. The NGI debuts this year at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona.

Ball State wasn’t far off the .500 mark after the first half of the season, but their spring slate was no cakewalk. After winning the Butler Invitational on March 28, Ball State ran the Power 5 gauntlet in April.

“We played in Vanderbilt’s event, which was a really strong field,” he said. “We played in Purdue’s event, which had Oklahoma and a handful of Big 10 teams and was a strong field. We played at Illinois and they had five or six Big 10 teams and it was a strong field.

“The challenge was there for us to try to get that thing north of .500. We kind of held serve at several of those events.”

Ball State enters the NGI ranked No. 132 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, but landed at No. 97 in Golfweek’s spring-only rankings.

The big test, and ultimately the performance that secured an NGI bid for Ball State, came at the Mid-American Conference Championship. A win would send the team to NCAA regionals as an Automatic Qualifier, but the Cardinals needed to be third or better to be postseason eligible. Fleck laid out both scenarios plainly.

“We felt like we had a team, and were playing with some momentum, that was capable of winning,” he said.

Ball State men's golf
The 2023 Ball State men’s golf team. (Photo: Ball State Athletics)

Ball State worked its way up from seventh after the first round to second and in the final round, paired with Kent State and Northern Illinois, the Cardinals held their position. The AQ went to Northern Illinois, and that was still a tough pill for Ball State to swallow. An NGI bid made it go down easier.

“It’s exciting and it’s something that college golf has needed for quite some time now to match up with our peer sports at the college level,” Fleck said of the NGI debut. “For us to be a part of the inaugural event I think is pretty special. I think it carries a little bit more weight and meaning any time you’re the first to do something and being involved with this event is definitely something we’re excited about and looking forward to the opportunity.”

Fleck last took a team to the postseason in 2013, when Ball State was assigned to an NCAA regional in Pullman, Washington. They advanced to the NCAA Championship after winning a sudden death playoff with San Diego State.

Fleck has employed much the same gameplan for preparation a decade later, dispatching his players to compete in some independent events now that the semester is over. Two of the top three spots in the Indianapolis Open went to Ball State players, with a third finishing T-15, and fifth-year senior Joey Ranieri won a U.S. Open local qualifier in Cincinnati.

Expect Ball State to hit the ground running at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes.

“It would be cool to be the first,” Fleck said. “That’s what’s pretty special about this event this year.”

Likewise, Washington State wasn’t ready to be done after a historic run at the Pac-12 Championship last month. So while senior Pono Yanagi played an NCAA regional in Morgan Hill, California, this week as an individual, finishing T-32, his teammates back home continued to prepare for the NGI.

“I think the rest of the guys want to play more golf as well,” White said. “We want to be playing in a regional ourselves, but I think this is a good first step and a taste of the postseason. It’s an opportunity to showcase what our guys are capable of.”

Washington State would need the NCAA to grant Yanagi a waiver to play with his team at the NGI after already competing in a regional. White said that hasn’t come through, so the Washington State lineup was in a bit of limbo mid-week.

Still, the energy is good as the Cougars continue to work out, play qualifying rounds and hone in on areas of their game Ak-Southern Dunes will test.

The Cougars could arrive in Arizona with some serious wind in their sails after finishing third at Pac-12s. Washington State gave a gutsy performance after starting their weeks with their backs against a wall, needing a fifth-place finish or better to be postseason eligible.

White likens the conference championship to the season-opening Husky Invitational, which his team rallied to win. The focus at Pac 12s wasn’t to squeak out a top 5, but rather to attack the day, play the golf course and see what happens.

“You never know in a six-count-five-format,” White said of Pac-12s. “That’s kind of a different animal. Our guys really stepped up and the fight they showed was really special to watch. We had some moments where it really could have gone sideways but they just hung in there and played some really nice golf.

“We got paired with Arizona State and Stanford. They kind of got a front-row seat to what some of these other teams are like and how they’re built, and they stood tall and they played their own game and we walked out of there with a great finish.”

Now it’s time to stride right into the postseason.

Ball State and Washington State will join 11 other schools from 12 different states in this first-year postseason event that is expected to grow in popularity in coming years.

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Denise St. Pierre leaves Penn State with a championship after her players deliver down the stretch at inaugural NGI

Penn State will announce Denise St. Pierre’s retirement today after 31 years at the helm of the women’s golf team. She went out in style.

Penn State will announce Denise St. Pierre’s retirement today after 31 years at the helm of the women’s golf team. On Sunday, in a bit of incredible timing, St. Pierre managed to slip one final, monumental line onto her career resume: that of national champion.

Penn State won the first National Golf Invitational in history on May 14 by holding off a charge from Iowa over the closing stretch at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. St. Pierre, 61, gave a masterclass in knowing your players – one that arguably began in August.

St. Pierre didn’t want her team to hear from outside voices that this would be her final year coaching, so she decided to tell them herself. She punctuated the announcement with a clear request not to dwell on her farewell season. There would be no celebrating coach’s last this and final that.

It’s possible, St. Pierre said, that her retirement motivated her team at the NGI, but more probable, in her mind, is that they had their own goals to accomplish. Penn State finished a disappointing 12th at the Big 10 Conference Championship and narrowly missed making regionals as a team (qualifying Mathilde Delavallade, however, as an individual).

St. Pierre also kept the creation of the NGI to herself until the season had played out, wanting her players to be striving for what they had always been striving for since the beginning: an NCAA berth.

But having the NGI to extend their season? “I can’t tell you what it means,” St. Pierre said, “especially to my players who are leaving.”

St. Pierre is an early riser and a morning planner on tournament days, and she did it one last time before Sunday’s final round. Penn State had a five-shot lead on Santa Clara with 18 holes to play.

“I always reflect on, what do they need at this point in time?” St. Pierre said. “Something that just kept repeating over and over in my head was, ‘Nothing different, Denise.’”

As Iowa, who had started the day in third, made a charge midway through the round, closing the gap to two shots late in the back nine, St. Pierre again made a conscious effort to be who she has been all season with her players and not to change tactics with the heightened stakes. St. Pierre admits to feeling her insides churning at times.

When Drew Nienhaus drove it in the bunker on the par-5 16th then successfully got out and hit her approach to 6 feet for birdie, the gap widened a little more in Penn State’s favor. After that, Isha Dhruva stuck her approach at the par-3 17th for birdie. In the anchor spot, Michelle Cox drilled her second shot to 8 feet on the par-5 16th and made eagle.

Knowing how much to tell each player is one of the nuances St. Pierre has mastered nearly four decades into this career.

“I think each one of them handles things a little differently,” she said. “You have to know your players to know when to say something to them and let them be who they are.”

Penn State’s 5-over final round was the best team score on Sunday. The Nittany Lions finished the week at 15 over with Iowa at 25 over. Mercer was third another shot back.

A lot of coaches, Dhruva noted, are serious on the golf course. They give yardages and back off.

“Coach does that, but she also makes sure we’re smiling and we’re laughing,” she said. “I know if I see her on a tee box, I’m able to make a joke or two, even if I had a bad hole before or a really good hole before, and that’s something I very much appreciate in a coach.”

Jokes aside, St. Pierre admitted to not having much in her long career to which she could compare this situation. Sometimes she felt she had to control her own nerves just as much as her players had to control theirs.

For Megan Menzel, Iowa’s head women’s coach, a final-round pairing beside St. Pierre and Penn State was big. Through the years, St. Pierre’s teams, she said, have shown up with sharp short games and a loads of heart.

“She brings so much to our coaching group,” Menzel said. “We talk a lot about empowering young women and I’ve just always seen that from her teams. . . . She walks around that golf course and just expects them to compete and really pulls that out of them. I’ve just admired that.”

Menzel credited her team for putting heat on the Nittany Lions down the stretch, and sees this experience as going a long way for a young squad. The Hawkeyes have only ever been to the postseason one time before this week – in the 1990s when they won their conference championship and an automatic qualifying spot.

“I think there’s a lot of really good teams that get left out of regionals, so I think that for us to be able to highlight these really strong teams and good players, I think it’s just an invaluable opportunity,” Menzel said.

Iowa freshman Shannyn Vogler.

Iowa freshman Shannyn Vogler will take home the inaugural NGI individual title after a 5-under total for 54 holes. Vogler went 3 under on the front nine and leapfrogged Penn State’s Cox when Cox took a triple bogey on the final hole.

Dhruva can’t remember a time when she has laughed harder with a group of people than this week at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes. She’s one of three seniors leaving Penn State alongside St. Pierre, and won’t ever forget standing in the 18th fairway on Sunday, watching fellow senior Sarah Willis putt out ahead of her.

Dhruva and her teammates like to joke with St. Pierre that they’re “her last and favorite team.” It’s special, she said, to have the kind of bond that she and her teammates had with St. Pierre.

“She’s definitely nurtured us in more ways than just being a golfer – in being better students and better people, and I couldn’t ask for a better person to guide me throughout my college career.”

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Every shot counts for Mercer’s fab four at the NGI, but they’re hardly stressing

It’s an every-woman-counts scenario for Mercer this week. Head coach Michele Drinkard traveled four players to the NGI.

It has already occurred to Mikayla Dubnik that the plane ride home from Maricopa, Arizona, on Sunday evening won’t be consumed by a 40-page reading assignment in one of her textbooks. That, in itself, “is amazing.”

Finals have wrapped at Mercer University, leaving Dubnik, a sophomore, and her teammates with a lightness to focus on the golf at this week’s National Golf Invitational and, for once, the pool. Rounds end in relaxation, not the familiar rat race.

In her postseason debut on Friday, Dubnik fired an opening 4-under 68 at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, leading Mercer into fourth on the 10-team leaderboard. With more challenging hole locations and wind gusts in play for Saturday’s second round, Dubnik backed up to 76 but still helped Mercer maintain its fourth-place position on the leaderboard at 17 over.

The Bears trail leader Penn State by eight shots, with Santa Clara and Iowa in the No. 2 and 3 positions entering the final round. Penn State’s Michelle Cox leads the individual race at 6 under.

It’s an every-woman-counts scenario for Mercer this week. Head coach Michele Drinkard traveled four players to the NGI. One player remains at home after taking a redshirt season and another entered the transfer portal at the end of the season (per Mercer policy, a player in the transfer portal is no longer part of the team).

Earlier in the season, Mercer competed at the Florida State Match-Up with four players when Dubnik was unable to compete due to illness. That provided experience for Dubnik’s three teammates but to Dubnik, playing as a four-woman squad this week is about never giving up.

“At the end of the day, every score counts,” she said. “You just have to fight through every one even if you aren’t playing your best.”

Dubnik found the atmosphere at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes heartwarming from the standpoint that officials have worked hard to support college golfers who didn’t make it past their conference.

Drinkard, a women’s college golf veteran who has been at Mercer for eight years, feels it too.

“The vibe of the trip is to celebrate and the atmosphere has been incredible at the club, the staff, the green superintendents – they all want us there and it’s just been very special,” she said. “It doesn’t have the vibe of cutthroat. It has just a nice vibe of celebration of these teams and to create history.”

The Mercer women’s team has just four players at the National Golf Invitational. (Photo by Landon Ringler)

Mercer last competed in the postseason in 2021, when they finished 14th at an NCAA regional in Louisville. Drinkard, a longtime proponent of the NGI, sees college golf’s new postseason event as an opportunity that will grow the sport.

“As a whole, it’s promotion for our program. The teams in the top 100 are a lot closer in competitiveness than it seems in the ranking, as shown by the schools that are now in the final,” she said. “It gives us another opportunity to showcase our school, showcase our program but also to grow and get experience so that we either can play in this tournament next year or hopefully a step up to the NCAA as well, but you only get better if you experience it.”

Back on campus at Mercer, in Macon, Georgia, the university is firmly behind women’s golf’s historic postseason appearance, so much so that the idea of postseason rings has been floated. The university is on board to do everything for the NGI that would normally be done to celebrate an NCAA berth, Drinkard said.

Mercer will play in the groups ahead of the final three teams on Sunday, but that’s OK with Drinkard.

“I think you have to be careful about getting in tune with what other teams are doing and just jump right into your own process and take care of business.”

Mercer leads the field in par-4 scoring, and every player birdied the par-4 second on Tuesday. It was at that point that Drinkard’s mom, back home in Alabama, sent a text prompting her daughter to check the scores.

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Drinkard isn’t one to hang on Golfstat, and neither are her players. Like they have all week, Mercer’s fab four will lean on each other.

“The chemistry between this group, they are so uplifting and positive with each other,” Drinkard said. “They’ve come out here with, ‘Hey, let’s just go take it to this golf course and whatever happens, happens.’”

NGI college golf: Penn State sub Michelle Cox hits opening tee shot and keeps on running

Cox went from off the tee sheet to first one at-bat, hitting the historic first shot. She didn’t think about the significance until later.

Let the record show that Michelle Cox, a Penn State sophomore, struck the opening tee shot in the inaugural round of the National Golf Invitational on May 12. That’s particularly notable considering that Cox had barely been in the field 12 hours.

All spring, Penn State has traveled with a squad of six players. Cox was often the sixth, but she made all seven starts with the team in the second half of the season – most notably in the Big 10 Championship, a play-six-count-four format. So when Penn State’s leading scorer Mathilde Delavallade was out of the five-woman NGI lineup at the last minute, Cox suited up at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona.

Delavallade and Penn State head coach Denise St. Pierre had made the trip to Arizona straight from Athens, Georgia, where Delavallade had competed as an individual in an NCAA regional. Meanwhile, they waited for an NCAA waiver that would allow Delavallade to tee it up with her team in another postseason event, the inaugural NGI.

St. Pierre had told Cox to be ready, in case that waiver didn’t come through. Cox found out shortly after the team practice round that it hadn’t.

“When I found out that Mat is not playing and I’m up,” she said, “it was go-time.”

So Cox went from off the tee sheet to first one at-bat on Friday morning, thus hitting the historic first shot. She didn’t think about the significance until later.

Maricopa, Ariz.; Penn State sophomore Michelle Cox with an opening round 5-under 67 in the inaugural National Golf Invitational (Photo by Landon Ringler)

“I mean it’s pretty cool. I hit a decent drive too,” she said, noting that it wasn’t in the fairway but still “totally fine.”

From there, Cox went on a heater, making her first of four birdies at the par-4 second. She was in between clubs at the par-3 sixth but made a confident swing and picked up another birdie. She went for the green in two at the par-5 seventh and chipped in there for eagle.

“Those two holes were just a huge momentum swing going forward and I got really comfortable on the course after that,” she said, noting that she was much more relaxed on the first tee at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes than she normally might be at tournaments.

Cox had two more birdies on the back and closed with a bogey for an opening 5-under 67. She leads Mikayla Dubnik of Mercer and Elizabeth Lohbauer of Western Carolina by one shot in the individual race. Penn State, with an even-par team total, is one ahead of Iowa after 18 holes.

“All of the preparation all spring I was thankful for today because I was ready to go,” said Cox, whose best finish was a T-27 at the Lady Buckeye Invitational in April.

Friday’s performance was hardly surprising to St. Pierre, who was well aware of Cox’s capabilities.

“It was not like putting someone in who had not played at all,” she noted. “She’s a competitor, she’s very gritty, she loves to be out there and be part of the team and competing. I’m not surprised at all what happened today.”

Cox’s round went a long way in Penn State’s rise up the leaderboard. Ak-Chin Southern Dunes requires a focus on targets – off the tee as well as into greens – which was a major talking point during the team’s practice round.

“I think we made a good execution of the game plan that we talked about yesterday,” St. Pierre said.

As for Delavallade, who finished T-43 individually in Athens to miss advancing to the NCAA Championship, this week offers a little different perspective, too.

“She’s been a great support for her teammates,” said St. Pierre.

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College golf: Men’s field set for inaugural National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes

Meet the 12-team men’s field in the inaugural National Golf Invitational.

The 13-team men’s field is set for the inaugural National Golf Invitational, a new postseason collegiate event scheduled May 18-21 at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Arizona.

Presented in partnership with Golfweek, the 2023 Men’s National Golf Invitational will feature 13 college teams competing in a 54-hole stroke-play tournament.

The teams in the field are: Arkansas State, Ball State, George Washington, Oral Roberts, Penn State, Santa Clara, Stetson, Texas State, Troy, Utah Valley, Valparaiso, Washington State and Wyoming.

“I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am for this and how long I have been dreaming of hosting this event. To have a host in Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club and a staff that shares that same energy is going to take this event to the next level,” Ringler said. “Growing up a big basketball fan, combined with my passion for college golf, helped bring to life the NIT of college golf in the NGI. It is going to be something I look forward to each May.

“Most importantly, college golf is more than ready for this type of postseason event. So many schools put so many resources into their college golf programs and having this opportunity to play in a postseason event is something a lot more teams can realistically aim for.”

In May 2022, the NCAA announced it would allow schools to play in one season-ending event, similar to college basketball’s NIT. By July 2022, the inaugural National Golf Invitational was created in a partnership between Golfweek and Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, with Golfweek’s Lance Ringler serving as the Invitational’s tournament director. A committee determined the invitation-only field using both the Golfweek/Sagarin and Golfstat rankings, while also considering teams who had strong regular seasons.

“Over five years ago, some great friends and I were sitting around brainstorming about how this tournament could be a game changer. Partnering with Lance and Golfweek has made this dream a reality,” Ak-Chin Southern Dunes general manager Brady Wilson said in a release. “As a former basketball coach, I can’t wait to make Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club the Madison Square Garden of college golf. We look forward to creating lifelong memories and experiences for all these student-athletes.”

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College golf: Women’s field set for inaugural National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes

Meet the women’s field in the inaugural National Golf Invitational.

The women’s field is set for the inaugural National Golf Invitational, a new postseason collegiate event scheduled May 11-14 at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Arizona.

Presented in partnership with Golfweek, the 2023 Women’s National Golf Invitational will feature 10 college teams competing in a 54-hole stroke-play tournament.

The 10 teams in the field are: Penn State, Mercer, Western Carolina, Iowa, Texas State, Santa Clara, UC Riverside, Middle Tennessee, Grand Canyon and Seattle.

“I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am for this and how long I have been dreaming of hosting this event. To have a host in Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club and a staff that shares that same energy is going to take this event to the next level,” Ringler said. “Growing up a big basketball fan, combined with my passion for college golf, helped bring to life the NIT of college golf in the NGI. It is going to be something I look forward to each May.

“Most importantly, college golf is more than ready for this type of postseason event. So many schools put so many resources into their college golf programs and having this opportunity to play in a postseason event is something a lot more teams can realistically aim for.”

In May 2022, the NCAA announced it would allow schools to play in one season-ending event, similar to college basketball’s NIT. By July 2022, the inaugural National Golf Invitational was created in a partnership between Golfweek and Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, with Golfweek’s Lance Ringler serving as the Invitational’s tournament director. A committee determined the invitation-only field using both the Golfweek/Sagarin and Golfstat rankings, while also considering teams who had strong regular seasons

More college golf: NCAA men’s regional fields | NCAA women’s regional fields

“Over five years ago, some great friends and I were sitting around brainstorming about how this tournament could be a game changer. Partnering with Lance and Golfweek has made this dream a reality,” Ak-Chin Southern Dunes general manager Brady Wilson said in a release. “As a former basketball coach, I can’t wait to make Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club the Madison Square Garden of college golf. We look forward to creating lifelong memories and experiences for all these student-athletes.”

The teams competing in the 2023 Men’s National Golf Invitational, scheduled to be played May 18-21, will be announced later.

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