Former LSU linebacker commits to Campbell

Sampah has finally found a home after entering the portal in August.

Former LSU linebacker [autotag]Antoine Sampah[/autotag] is dropping down to the FCS level, as he announced his commitment to the Campbell Camels on his Twitter account Thursday.

A former four-star recruit and top-100 player nationally out of Woolbridge, Virginia, Sampah gives Campbell one of the highest-rated prospects the program has ever landed. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound player has two remaining years of eligibility.

Despite being one of LSU’s top prospects in the 2020 class, things never worked out for Sampah in Baton Rouge. After seeing action in four games as a true freshman, he played in just two in 2021. He never registered any stats during his time in Baton Rouge.

Sampah joins a Camels team coming off a 5-6 season in the Big South in 2022.

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Ashley Sloup helps guide Campbell women to another win in 2022 Golfweek Fall Challenge

It’s the seventh time the Campbell women have won the Golfweek Fall Challenge.

Caledonia Golf Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, might as well be a second home for Campbell women’s golf.

“It just sets up so well for them,” said assistant men’s and women’s coach Ashley Sloup. “It’s such a beautiful course, being close to the beach, the history of Caledonia, the beautiful flowers and incredible old trees, it’s hard not to be happy there.”

In nine trips to the Golfweek Fall Challenge, Campbell’s women have carted off a trophy seven times, including most recently on Sept. 13. After driving down Caledonia’s tree-canopied entrance as event winners, Sloup exercised some local knowledge and took the team to Toffino’s Bakery for a celebratory treat.

It is, indeed, hard not to be happy in the Camels’ van.

So much was familiar about Campbell’s team win at the Golfweek Fall Challenge, but Sloup at the helm was one of the biggest differences. This marked the women’s team’s 97th win under head coach John Crooks’ direction, but it was Sloup who had feet on the ground in Myrtle Beach.

Sloup, who played collegiately at Winthrop, signed on with Crooks in March 2021. For a season and a half, she primarily worked with the men. Sloup recruited this year’s men’s freshman class.

When former women’s assistant Lyndsey Hunnell took the head women’s coaching job at High Point and former men’s assistant Matt Moot came back in the fold after a short stint away at N.C. State, Sloup transitioned to primarily working with the women’s team, though she’ll still be involved in both programs at Campbell.

The transition couldn’t have been smoother, Sloup said, but she still recognizes that it takes some work.

“I have to earn their trust, I have to earn their respect, I have to start building those relationships,” she said. “With the Golfweek (Fall Challenge) being so early, we hit the ground running.”

The 165-mile trip from campus in Buies Creek, North Carolina, south to Myrtle Beach provided time for lots of getting-to-know-each-other. Campbell graduated five seniors from its women’s team last spring. Fifth-year senior Tomita Arejola is back in a leadership role with junior Sanna Lundmark the only other veteran player. Izabella Grimbrandt is playing as a red-shirt freshman after sitting out a year with a broken arm that required surgery.

The three newest players – Grimbrandt, Isabella Hahne and Taylah Ellems — all fired rounds under par on the opening day at Caledonia to give Campbell the early lead.

“We shoot 5 under as a team, we’re tied first, it’s incredible,” Sloup said.

That’s when Sloup turned it over to experience.

“I said Tomi, hit us with some wisdom,” Sloup said in reference to Arejola, whose motivating speech came after a Sunday-night birthday dinner for Lundmark. “… I take them home and Tomi goes, ‘Now we get some rest and we get ready for tomorrow.’ And we get to True Blue to warm up (Monday) and Tomi is like, ‘Today is a new day, yesterday is over, it means nothing. Today is moving day, we need to set ourselves apart. We need to get after it.’ And so they do it.”

Campbell counted three rounds of 69 and Arejola could have thrown in a fourth round of 69 but for a missed short putt.

Arejola had a similar message at the beginning of the third round, by which point the Camels had a seven-shot lead, and the team came out of the gate with seven birdies in their first four holes.

“That was important – right out of the gate, taking a strong start, that really set us up for success going into the back nine,” Sloup said.

For her part, Arejola finished with a 6-under 65 that was a new collegiate low for her. She made eight birdies and posted the second-lowest round in Campbell’s program history.  Her 8-under total, which left her as the individual runner-up, is the third-lowest 54-hole total in school record books.

Austin Peay State’s Erica Scutt did one better for 54 holes to take the individual medal. Scutt’s 54-hole total of 208 is a new program record.

Ultimately, Campbell finished at 18 under – matching the school record set by the 2018 squad at the same venue – and was 16 shots better than runner-up North Carolina-Wilmington. Campbell is a grateful group and one that not only savored the post-tournament treat but also the whole week.

“I’ve been on the men’s side, now I’m on the women’s side and there is no more humble and grateful and appreciative players and people than the Campbell golfers,” Sloup said. “Thank yous every meal, every ride, even when I helped them on a shot, ‘Thanks for the help, coach.’

“And I’m like, that’s my job, but you’re welcome.”

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At Campbell, men’s assistant Ashley Sloup and veteran head coach John Crooks team up as one of college golf’s most interesting duos

Campbell’s is a coaching setup not often seen in college golf, and Ashley Sloup credits head coach John Crooks for that.

For Campbell’s men’s golf team, Ashley Sloup lands somewhere between assistant coach and big sister.

“I’ve been able to build a relationship with each of the players and get to know them and what’s going on,” said Sloup, 25, who is in her second season coaching the Camels men’s team alongside veteran John Crooks, now in his 32nd season.

Campbell’s is a coaching setup not often seen in college golf, and Sloup credits Crooks for that. When previous men’s assistant Matt Moot took a job as the assistant coach at North Carolina State in February 2021, Crooks brought in Sloup as Moot’s replacement.

Crooks notes that Sloup is normally the only female in the room when coaches get together at men’s college golf tournaments.

“That took a lot of faith and a lot of trust,” Sloup said.

Sloup had known Crooks during her days playing college golf for Winthrop, which competes against Campbell in the Big South Conference. One day, Sloup reminded Crooks that they’d actually met a few years earlier. Both were waiting to pick up their U.S. Open tickets at will-call at the 2014 tournament at Pinehurst and Sloup had introduced herself to the coach – she was an incoming freshman and wanted Crooks to know they’d be seeing each other on the college circuit. Crooks was impressed by the interaction.

“I thought, most people would not have addressed that,” he said.

Ashley Sloup, Campbell
Ashley Sloup, Campbell’s men’s assistant (Photo by Bennett Scarborough)

Before taking the men’s assistant gig at Campbell, Sloup spent a season as the women’s assistant at Furman. Her first foray into coaching came at Northwood University, an NCAA Division II school in Midland, Michigan, where she worked with both the men’s and women’s teams.

Sloup is in a different realm with Campbell’s men, but there are similarities that she’s able to draw between coaching experiences. At Furman, Sloup was able to coach Natalie Srinivasan, the 2020 WGCA Player of the Year and ANNIKA Award winner. At Campbell, Pontus Nyholm, who has since turned professional, was ranked as high as No. 46 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Sloup saw how differently men and women attack a golf course and learned the nuances of each side of the game.

“The guys thankfully have been so respectful, so welcoming, so inviting,” Sloup said. “I really kind of felt like I was this missing puzzle piece that they didn’t know they were missing.”

Crooks, who heads both golf programs at Campbell, ranks second among all active Division I women’s coaches in tournament victories with 90, which leaves him behind only Duke head coach Dan Brooks. Crooks is a self-described laid-back leader, and much of that likely comes from sheer time spent in this game. Sloup brings plenty of energy to the table.

“I’ve known about her and her personality and she’s a lot of the things that I’m not,” Crooks said. “I’m talking about her outlook. She brings and energy to the room.”

He remembers one of the first trips Sloup went on as his assistant. As soon as the van stopped, she was out the door trying to unload players’ golf bags.

The cup is always full in Sloup’s world, Crooks says.

“Every one of (the players), when you ask them would you like to have somebody walk with you, nobody has ever turned Ashley down,” Crooks said of his men’s team. “They’ve turned me down.”

Establishing an effective coaching dynamic with Crooks was easy, Sloup said. She appreciates the wisdom and experience as well as the deep southern delivery that make Crooks one of the memorable figures in college golf.

Asked for some of the most notable “Crooksisms” players are likely to hear in the team van, Sloup prefaced her response with a note about that accent.

“He’s so southern, so you have to picture in a very southern accent,” she said before quoting her boss: “’We have a saying on the golf team – un-lucky.’ And then he’ll say, if someone does something really good, he’ll say, “Oh my.”

Any player who tries to ignore the sage advice that Crooks has to give is likely to hear something along the lines of, “Well what do I know? I’ve only been doing this 33 years.”

Sloup has taken to calling Crooks by the nickname Yoda.

“She calls me yoda not for my knowledge, and that’s important,” Crooks notes. “Yoda is the oldest living creature she’s aware of.”

In turn, Crooks’ Star Wars-inspired nickname for Sloup is Padawan, a term used in the movies for an intern in training. Both terms are fitting in their own way.

“The best thing about him,” Sloup said of the learning curve under Crooks, “is not only is he preparing me to be a head coach someday, a top assistant at another big top program, but he’s preparing me and teaching me how to grow as a young woman and as a person.”

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College coaches were back recruiting at the U.S. Junior this week. A few in particular have a special connection to this event.

John Crooks and Tim Straub were back recruiting this week at the U.S. Junior, where they happen to be past champs.

Back in 2018, when then-Campbell-freshman Pontus Nyholm qualified for the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Camels head coach John Crooks orchestrated a detour. There was a scroll in Oklahoma City that Crooks wanted to see.

The player scroll is a familiar tradition for USGA championships, and Crooks knew that the one from the 1967 U.S. Junior at Twin Hills Golf Club would have his name on it – if it was still there.

“I called ahead and they were very gracious, met us and had carts for us,” Crooks remembered. “They showed me that I signed during registration for all the participants and then we rode by the golf course.”

Crooks’ run to that U.S. Junior title rarely comes up within his team, but it’s nice for the longtime coach of both Campbell golf teams to occasionally reference if he needs to drive home a point with a player.

Crooks spent this week recruiting at the U.S. Junior just up the road from Campbell. Walking the fairways at Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina, was a return to normalcy. For much of the past year, in-person recruiting was off-limits because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Because of COVID, I don’t know how other coaches felt but it’s just like I’ve just been standing in quicksand, there was nothing I could do, no place I could go,” he said. “To be able to walk the golf course and go up and down and walk nine holes and then nine more and then nine more, that’s what we’re supposed to do during the summertime, see players and be seen by players.”

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Crooks won his U.S. Junior title in his first and only trip to the championship when he was 17. He had a local caddie at Twin Hills – one who had just signed to play basketball on scholarship at a school in Oklahoma and who Crooks distinctly remembers being unfamiliar with how to tote a golf bag. He would often pick it up by the handle and carry it that way.

Crooks met Andy North, a three-time PGA Tour winner turned ESPN golf analyst, in the final and got an early advantage. He was 6 up when he made the turn and held on to that advantage even as North came to life on the back nine. Crooks won, 2 and 1, when he birdied the 17th on top of North.

“I can’t tell you the length of every putt that I hit but I think that I played that round over in my head so much that if I can’t remember every shot I can remember most of them,” he said.

In the years since, Crooks has only seen North in person one time.

Back when Crooks competed, a player aged out of U.S. Junior eligibility when he was 18. Now, junior players have an extra year to compete. Plus, there weren’t as many outlets for word of the tournament to spread.

Still, Crooks was very much aware what it meant to be a U.S. Junior champion even before he was one.

Crooks isn’t the only current college coach for whom U.S. Junior week means a little something extra. Cincinnati men’s coach Doug Martin won in 1984 and Davidson men’s coach Tim Straub won in 1983.

Straub is one of a distinguished group to finish runner-up (in 1982 at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana) before going on to win the next year at Saucon Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

“The first year – the U.S. Junior when I was 15 – it was the first real big national tournament I played in,” Straub said. “I remember thinking it was the hardest golf course I’d ever seen in my life.”

A deep run in ’82 meant Straub returned in ’83 as the favorite. He also felt he was playing like one.

For Straub, winning in ’83 meant also getting a spot in the U.S. Amateur. College coaches began to turn their heads, too. Straub went on to play college golf at Wake Forest where he was a member of the 1986 NCAA Championship team.

“Even from the previous year I knew what an accomplishment it is to play well in the U.S. Junior,” he said.

And no matter how many years go by, that’s one thing that never changes.

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Men’s college golf player of the week: Pontus Nyholm, Campbell

Pontus Nyholm shot a 10-under 62 in the final round to win the Stitch Intercollegiate by three shots.

Pontus Nyholm did exactly what he needed to do to win the Stitch Intercollegiate: shoot a 10-under 62 in the final round to win by three.

The Campbell junior made eight birdies and an eagle to reach 17 under and outduel NC State’s Christian Salzer, who shot a 7-under 65 in the final round to finish three shots back at 14 under.

Nyholm broke the 54-hole program record for lowest score to win his third tournament of the spring. He also earned a sponsor exemption in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Rex Hospital Open, June 3-6 at TPC Wakefield in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Any time you have a 62, it’s a good day,” said Nyholm. “Doing it in front of all the guys and the coaches makes it extra special.  My plan is to come back to the States next fall for Korn Ferry Q-School, so to get a taste this summer of what the Korn Ferry Tour is like is amazing.”

Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings: Men’s team | Men’s individual
College golf blog: The Road to Grayhawk

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Pontus Nyholm closes out Golfweek True Blue title to start an unusual fall season

Pontus Nyholm had posted one of those, an opening 8-under 64, on Sunday on the strength of his wedge game. He won with a closing 66.

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. — Normally, the winner gets to pick the meal in the Campbell huddle. There was indeed a Campbell huddle this week at the Golfweek True Blue Amateur, albeit an unofficial one as six Camels competed as individuals only.

As it turns out, Pontus Nyholm will probably pick up a decidedly unfancy bite to eat at McDonalds on the drive back home to campus, mostly because Wednesday morning team workouts are going to roll around early. While it’s important to savor a win, it’s not always an easy thing to do as a college student.

“Tomorrow is workouts, 7 o’clock in the morning, then we’ll have school then it’s practice,” said Nyholm. “You don’t really have time to.”

True Blue got decidedly more difficult as the week went on. The course dried out after being saturated in a downpour just days before the tournament. Nyholm found it difficult to gauge distances in a swirling wind on Tuesday. Those conditions made the low numbers more scarce.


Scores: Golfweek True Blue Amateur


Nyholm had posted one of those, an opening 8-under 64, on Sunday on the strength of his wedge game. He followed with 71 in the second round before posting a closing 66 to reach 15 under and close out a two-shot victory over South Carolina freshman Rafe Reynolds.

“It was nice to play an event as an actual college player,” said Reynolds.” I was able to play a few events this summer. We have a really solid team so I wanted to make sure I got to play, at least a little bit, this fall.”

With his five Campbell teammates watching from just off the 18th green, Nyholm holed a 20-footer for birdie to an extreme front pin. Things had started slowly for the Swede on Tuesday morning, to the tune of two bogeys in his opening five holes.

Nyholm hit a 3-wood to 3 feet from 275 yards out on the par-5 10th hole and kept it going from there.

“That was kind of the turning point for me,” he said.

It’s a roughly three-hour drive back home to the Campbell campus, and Nyholm will make it along with four of his teammates in a well-loved Chevy Impala. The men might struggle to find a place for the trophy, considering how packed the car was coming down.

Campbell isn’t able to compete as a team this fall, which is a spot many universities find themselves in. Instead, they created a makeshift fall schedule and plan to travel together. The Golfweek True Blue Amateur was just the first stop.

Despite the victory, Nyholm still named some problem areas in his game. He planned to work on his driving, which he called “not good enough,” and thought his putting needed a bit of attention, too. Then of course there was the workout that awaited. It will be a little easier to be cheery about that.

“I’ll obviously going to feel better walking into workouts tomorrow at 7 o’clock than I usually do,” he reasoned.

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Pontus Nyholm’s 64 at True Blue leads an unofficial, yet memorable, Campbell charge

There’s no team leaderboard at the Golfweek True Blue Amateur, but Campbell could easily field a team score if it needed to.

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. – An informal football game broke out in the parking lot Sunday at True Blue Golf Club. It was a good way for five of the six Campbell players in the field to get the energy out before piling in a weathered grey Chevy Impala to head back to their rental for the night.

It’s a tight fit in the battered four-door with the crack over the passenger-side window, so efficient packing was key.

“She’s packed pretty full at the moment,” said Josh Hetherington, the driver, “and I’m surprised we even made it without any hiccups.”

There’s no team leaderboard at the Golfweek True Blue Amateur, but Campbell could easily field a team score if allowed to. Only College of Charleston and George Mason have more men in the 91-player amateur field this week (with Queens University of Charlotte also fielding six).

Scores: Golfweek True Blue Amateur

The Camels didn’t even play a practice round at True Blue, but they’ve all seen it before in college events. The three-hour drive from Buies Creek, North Carolina, was punctuated only with a stop at McDonald’s. Clubs were crammed in the car with five bodies.

It’s pretty close to normal in the Campbell camp, minus coach John Crooks’s presence.

“And we have to pay for everything ourselves,” junior Pontus Nyholm added.

Nyholm was the star of the day on Sunday, picking his spots and lasering his wedges to an 8-under 64 that gave him the solo lead over Jake Carter, a Ladson, South Carolina, native who plays on the Charleston Southern roster.

“I was playing kind of aggressive with the fairways being so wet, no roll, you kind of have to hit driver to get close,” Nyholm said of a soggy True Blue that has endured upwards of 10 inches of rain in the past few days.

Nyholm hung around campus for a few weeks after the spring season was canceled because of COVID, but ultimately flew home to Sweden for the bulk of the summer. He played three events on the Swedish Golf Tour. As a member of the Swedish National Team, he was able to gain entry as a wild card.

Courtesy of his position in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (Nyholm currently checks in at No. 51), he would have gained entry into the U.S. Amateur last month. He led the registration deadline pass thinking he wouldn’t be able to travel to the U.S. to play only to see travel restrictions later lifted.

He still feels lucky to have been able to play the professional events in Sweden.

Nyholm spent the day trying to get it to 100 meters, the sweet spot for a little 50-degree wedge shot that set up several birdies. Nyholm had seven of those on Sunday, plus an eagle at the par-5 ninth.

His 64 was seven better than the next best Campbell score. Edwin Blomander and Henrik Lilja had rounds of 71.

“We should know a little bit more than other players,” said Hetherington, referencing the sheer number of times Campbell has competed in the Golfweek Program Challenge, usually played at True Blue in early September.

The Campbell men have been playing just among themselves for the past two weeks, so this competition is refreshing. His unofficial fall lineup may be the best of all, though. Campbell is one of many schools that won’t compete as a team in the fall, but players plan to tee it up in a couple more amateur events.

Interestingly, Blomander and Lilja made headlines earlier in the month when they logged holes-in-one in the same round at Keith Hills Golf Club, Campbell’s home course.

“It was my first hole in one so I almost gave up on it,” said Lilja, who had never even seen a hole-in-one live before that day.

Hetherington planned to play some amateur events over the summer, but when host families became hard to come by and COVID precautions were put in place, he withdrew. Instead, he went south to Isleworth Country Club outside Orlando and tagged along with fellow Australians Ryan Ruffels and Curtis Luck, both Korn Ferry Tour players.

“I nearly got more experience watching those guys play than even playing myself,” said Hetherington, who said many days were spent working out in the morning, playing in the afternoon then going fishing.

Hetherington caddied for Ruffels for a month-long stretch over the summer, and got in some informal competition himself. Several PGA Tour players call Isleworth home, and Hetherington won’t forget a round with Graeme McDowell.

“He was a really nice guy and he just spoke to me like any normal person,” Hetherington said. “So I’m a big fan of his now just for that.”

Having seen that next level – players that amateurs often put on a pedestal – it’s hard now for Hetherington not to think about how he and his teammates compare – especially on a day when one fired a 64.

Golf can be a cruel sport when you’re alone, but luckily that’s something the Campbell crew doesn’t have to navigate.

“Us boys are from all over the world – three countries, even four – to be together and eating together and staying together makes it a lot better experience,” Hetherington said. “It’s basically like this is the team we would travel with, we just don’t have a coach. In a way, I probably enjoy it better. We get to do what we want and then come to the course together and warm up.”

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