Tag: Golfweek Fall Challenge

New Mexico State’s Emma Bunch picked up another win at the Golfweek Fall Challenge. Here’s what’s behind her success

Bunch has now won six of the last seven starts she has made with the Aggies.

Emma Bunch didn’t see much of the real estate at Caledonia Golf and Fish Club in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. The New Mexico State junior missed only two fairways in 54 holes at the Golfweek Fall Challenge on her way to a winning score of 7 under.

This is typical for the player from Denmark. Given the accuracy, the next stat is unsurprising: Bunch has now won six of the last seven starts she has made with the Aggies. That track record helped land her on the preseason ANNIKA Award Watch List, where she was one of 10 players on the final watch list in the spring.

“I think I’ve always been a good ballstriker, but my short game has gotten a lot of better over the last year or so,” Bunch said. “Now, even if I miss a green, I think I could get up and down. That’s why I’m barely making bogeys right now.”

Scores: Golfweek Fall Challenge

Part of Bunch’s success at Caledonia on Sept. 10 can be attributed to a course that suits her. She finished T-8 there as a freshman and runner-up as a sophomore. But a much bigger part of the college winning streak she’s riding has to do with short game and confidence.

“She was just able to really expand on her short game and her putting last season, and I think that’s the tip of the iceberg when she got that first win this past spring, she really just took off with it and her confidence was through the roof plus some,” New Mexico State coach Danny Bowen said.

Bunch agrees with Bowen’s assessment that short game has been a difference maker, and the Aggie golf facilities have had a lot to do with that. Bunch found it easier to practice more once she got to college, particularly because team practices often focused on short game.

She also gained exposure to many more different types of grass than she had seen back home in Denmark.

Short game aside, Bunch struggles to put her finger on what has unlocked the door to so many tournament titles. Before winning the GCU Invitational last February, Bunch had not won a college tournament. Her next four spring tournament titles included the Ping/ASU Invitational and the Conference-USA Championship. She qualified for the NCAA Cle Elum Regional as an individual and finished T-24, but did not advance to the NCAA Championship.

“I don’t feel like anything has really changed, but I can look at my scores and they’re way better than they were before, so I guess something did unlock,” she said. “I think definitely a little bit more confident and a little more belief in my skills and that kind of stuff.”

Bunch says it’s “definitely fun every time” she tees it up. She finds that when she gets too focused on score, that’s when a round starts to slip.

In her preseason meeting with Bowen, the two spoke of keeping processes in place – like continuing Bunch’s goal of hitting at least 14 greens a round and being grateful for the opportunities she has – and continuing to do things to improve.

Bunch has been a leader by example for her Aggie team, largely in the way she works in practice and before the team goes to tournaments. She has found her voice in team meetings and as a cheerleader for her teammates.

“She has been in those positions this past spring and then this past week, right down to the last hole and in contention for a win,” Bowen said, “but also still realizing that she has those teammates in front of her and just cheering them on as much as she can as well.”

Bunch was selected to the International Arnold Palmer Cup team over the summer. She played the European Ladies Team Championship and was T-9 at the European Ladies Amateur. She is ranked inside the top 100 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking.

As a top player from Denmark, Bunch will represent her country at the Spirit International Amateur in November.

John Crooks cements his Campbell legacy as Golfweek Fall Challenge marks his 100th title

Crooks has special feelings about Caledonia Golf and Fish Club.

John Crooks wonders if his personal feelings about Caledonia Golf and Fish Club have something to do with the success his Campbell women’s team has experienced there over the years.

“The first time I saw Caledonia,” he said, “it’s just one of my favorite golf courses anywhere.”

The Camels are a consistent contender at the Golfweek Fall Challenge, played annually at this scenic spot on Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Entering this year’s event, Campbell had won six team titles, with its first title coming in 2012, and finished runner-up twice.

Crooks’ personal history will be forever entwined with Caledonia after Campbells’ latest victory there on Sept. 10. It was Crooks’ 100th title with the Camels women’s team, a milestone that puts him into a very small club of women’s coaches with career victories in the triple digits. In fact, he and longtime Duke women’s golf coach Dan Brooks, with 143 career victories, are the only members.

Scoring: Golfweek Fall Challenge

“I’ve been doing it for quite a while,” Crooks said of his long coaching stint. “The first year we didn’t win anything and so there’s been 33 years to accumulate 100 and I’ve just been fortunate to be surrounded by some really good people.”

Crooks also oversees the men’s golf program at Campbell, and has guided that team to 61 team titles. The men competed at the Myrtle Beach Golf Trips Intercollegiate this week while the women were at Caledonia, so Crooks split his time between the tournaments.

Campbell’s women had to put the pedal down in the final round to reach this milestone victory for their coach. After 36 holes at Caledonia, they trailed North Carolina-Wilmington, the defending champion in this event, by three shots. The Seahawks are a team capable of going low, having blistered the opening holes at last spring’s National Golf Invitational before finishing runner-up there. Three players from that squad returned this week at the season opener.

The Camels began chipping away at their deficit immediately, with the squad’s counters playing the first three holes in 3 under. UNCW played them in 3 over.

“After about three or four holes, we started gaining momentum. Then they just started playing really well,” Crooks said of his team. “We made a lot of birdies today and we played well.”

The closing hole, a 377-yard par 4 with an approach shot over water, can present drama at Caledonia, but so can the par-4 16th, another tricky hole with a green protected by water on the right. They played as two of the three hardest scoring holes for the tournament. Campbell navigated them both in even par for a final test, but UNCW didn’t give up any ground there, either.

“We have had luck there, we’ve made some pars where we needed to and today they finished very well,” Crooks said. “I have a lot of respect for the 16th and 18th hole at Caledonia.”

Campbell was the only team under par in the final round, and the team’s 2-under 54-hole total left them five shots ahead of UNCW. Emma Bunch of New Mexico State won the individual title for her sixth win in her last seven starts, dating to last season.

Crooks’ team had no problem getting excited for their coach and his 100th victory. The Campbell campus in Buis Creek, North Carolina, is only 170 miles north of Pawleys Island, and initially they were ready to pile right back in the van and head home.

“I told them well it’s time for a celebratory meal and they said well we’ll just go back to campus and get something there,” Crooks said. “I said, No, no, no. We’re at Myrtle Beach. We’re going to find something to eat now’”

And so, the team sat down to a big Italian dinner fitting for the accomplishment.

Arkansas State wins Golfweek Fall Challenge, picking up right where it left off last spring

Good memories may be just as important as good play, and in its season opener, Arkansas State had both.

Confidence carries over – season to season, venue to venue, roster to roster. Good memories may be just as important as good play, and in its season opener, Arkansas State had both.

Arkansas State head coach Mike Hagen can’t remember the last time, if ever, his Red Wolves won their first tournament out of the gate. But after closing out last season as the Sun Belt Conference champions, and thus earning an NCAA Regional berth, Hagen’s team rolled that momentum right through the summer and into Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

They won the Golfweek Fall Challenge on Sept. 10 by a 12-shot margin over Wright State.

“They’re really pumped,” Hagen said of the post-win vibe. “. . . I think it’s a big momentum thing for a team. They know they can win. We go and tee it up again in 10 days out in New Mexico.”

Scoring: Golfweek Fall Challenge

Three of the six men Hagen traveled to True Blue Golf Club for the Golfweek event had played there a year before. Scores can vary wildly at True Blue, a Mike Strantz design heavy on risk-reward. Last fall, Arkansas State was 36 under as a team, but only 8 under in the final round. The Red Wolves finished fourth, 11 shots behind Loyola Marymount, which came up a shot shy of the tournament scoring record of 48 under (still held by Campbell).

Still, Hagen liked the gameplan a year ago. His team played well, and they liked the place. Hagen can’t picture a better season opener, from venue to timing to format.

“I think the gameplan that we had last year was really solid and we kind of just took some of that into this year,” Hagen said. “Changed a few things up as well that we may have learned from playing the tournament and playing the golf course last year, and I think that kind of helped us play a little more consistent this year over the three rounds.”

Arkansas State won at 35 under this year and played the final round in 15 under. Patton Samuels, a junior at Austin Peay State, won the individual title at 15 under.

Hagen’s men still hit a lot of drivers this week, but there were holes – like Nos. 2 and 6, both par 4s – where a conservative strategy paid off. The field averaged over par on those holes for the week, but Arkansas State made up ground.

Hagen took into account history, spots on the course where a miss was particularly costly and hole locations.

“We were able to say hey, on X hole, we know that’s one that could really get you in trouble, we’re going to hit it at this spot on the green, if you roll a putt in great, if not we’re going to walk off with a par,” he said. “We’re not going to bring bogey or double into play.”

Arkansas State led the field in birdies and largely avoided big numbers. Three men placed in the top 6 individually: Jake Wallis was third, Jack Maxey fifth and Jake Lile tied for sixth. Wallis and Lile are both underclassmen and Maxey is a senior. The Red Wolves fivesome also included junior Thomas Schmidt and sophomore Milan Reed, and Hagen likes the mix of youth and experience there. Lile, Schmidt and Maxey competed in the NCAA Regional lineup.

Before last spring, Arkansas State last won the Sun Belt title in 2019. The team played the inaugural National Golf Invitational in 2023 and tied for sixth. Hagen always looks at the experiences that are carrying over.

“Going into this year, we bring back our top 3 players and only one of them is a senior,” Hagen said. “You add another senior who has been in and out of our lineup and some of the young, newer talent we’ve got. I think it’s helped them get comfortable to where they can step in and perform right away.”

Familiarity leads North Carolina-Wilmington to victory at Golfweek Fall Challenge

“It was an incredible battle,” UNCW head coach Cindy Ho said of a final-round horserace with Lipscomb.

So much was familiar in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, this week. North Carolina-Wilmington often starts its season this way – by making the drive a couple hours south down the coast to the Golfweek Fall Challenge at Caledonia Golf Club.

“This is the type of grass we play in, this is a very similar style golf course that we might face here,” said head coach Cindy Ho. “I love staying in the villas because it’s a great first team bonding kind of situation where especially if I had new players, they get to know each other.”

Not much getting-to-know-each-other is required for this UNCW team, which features several players from last season, so there’s familiarity in that respect too.

The week only diverged from familiar after Mallory Fobes holed the final putt on Caledonia’s daunting finishing hole, featuring a tight landing zone off the tee and an approach over water. When Fobes made bogey there to cap off a closing 69, it left UNCW a shot ahead of Lipscomb, with their first victory in the Golfweek Fall Challenge after four appearances.

Scoring: Golfweek Fall Challenge

“It was an incredible battle,” Ho said of a final-round horserace with Lipscomb. “At this time of year, you’re learning about your kids, you can’t simulate pressure but this is how you make it real. . . . Trying to compete, trying to win under that kind of pressure, pulling off shots – especially finishing on 18. Eighteen has had our number.”

On Tuesday, by the time UNCW – playing in the final groups with Lipscomb and Charleston Southern – approached the final hole, there were several groups stacked on the tee. Most of Ho’s players draw the ball, which means they can’t hit driver off the tee at that 377-yard par 4. That set up many more decisions down the hole, like where to aim on the approach and how much the wind would affect both line and club choice.

UNCW ended up playing the hole, the toughest for the field, in 1 over.

Ho jokes that checking Golfstat constantly during a round is too much for her blood pressure, but on the final day at Caledonia, a comment from Lipscomb head coach Shannon O’Brien about how well UNCW was playing led Ho to open up live scoring anyway.

It’s just not No. 18 that’s a challenge at Caledonia, but also the three holes leading up to it. Ho was proud of the way that her players rose to the occasion, especially fifth-year senior Fobes and redshirt sophomore Victoria Levy, who finished 1-2 on the individual leaderboard. Fobes was 4 under for the week and Levy, along with New Mexico State’s Emma Bunch, was 2 under.

Fobes is playing her COVID year, and Ho can’t think of a better way for it to start than with an individual title – the first of her career. It’s fitting for a player who owns many of UNCW’s program scoring records to now own some hardware.

“I’m just so proud of her, I’m so happy for her that she’s done so much work on her game,” Ho said. “You do so much work and you hope but you can’t control anybody else’s game. You can’t control your opponents in golf. The only thing you can control is your game, your emotions, how you react to it. She did the work and she was rewarded for it this time.”

Levy also shined as the coach’s pick in the lineup. Levy has had pneumonia and bronchitis almost from the moment she stepped on campus this fall and as a result has hit very few shots leading up to the first tournament. Coming down the stretch on Tuesday, she had a chip-in eagle on No. 15 then birdied No. 16 with a downhill, curling left-to-right foot putt to an unfamiliar right hole location.

Annika Saidleman, playing in the No. 3 position to start the week, brought in a final-round 72 and finished T-28 individually. Saidleman wasn’t in the UNCW lineup last year but was part of the team.

As Ho said, it takes everyone to win over three days.

“This group is really close, and I love that for them,” Ho said, noting how hard they celebrated Fobes’ individual win at the end of the day. “They’re genuinely happy for a person that won, not just about themselves, whether they played good or bad.”

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Loyola Marymount wins Golfweek Fall Challenge with a birdie fest and a history lesson

Loyola Marymount head coach Jason D’Amore went into the record books in an effort to motivate his players by numbers, not finish.

Jason D’Amore is a stats and numbers guy. Still, few rounds send him to the record books for motivation.

After his Loyola Marymount team went 17 under in the opening round of the Golfweek Fall Challenge at True Blue Golf Club on Pawleys Island, South Carolina, D’Amore decided to do a little digging. Knowing it’s sometimes hard to follow up a really good round, D’Amore decided to search for team and individual records to change the narrative.

“I just threw some numbers at them and had them more along the lines of hey, let’s go break some records and shoot these numbers versus being in first or second or third place,” D’Amore said. “We can’t control what the other teams are going to do but we know what we’re capable of. We set some goals for ourselves each day that were more based upon us than anyone else.”

The shift worked, as Loyola Marymount played the following 36 holes in 30 under and won the team title by a shot over Washington State on Sept. 12. The Lions landed three players inside the top 7 while individual medalist honors went to Washington State’s Pono Yanagi and Arkansas State’s Thomas Schmidt, who both finished at 17 under.

Scoring: Golfweek Fall Challenge

College golf may be an individual sport, but D’Amore knows that, for better or worse, players feed off each other. At True Blue, the Lions kept the goal-setting focused on themselves, letting the chips fall around them.

In the history of the Golfweek Fall Challenge, only four teams have gone below 30 under for 54 holes at True Blue. Campbell set the scoring record of 48 under when it won in 2018 and won by 34 over second-place Jacksonville State & Stephen F. Austin. The individual record remains with Jacksonville State alum Tomas Anderson, whose 19-under total in 2014 included a final-round 60.

How does a team go 47 under? D’Amore makes a case for consistency more than fireworks. Loyola Marymount counted at least three scores in the 60s in each round and never counted anything higher than 72. Inviting conditions also played a role, he noted.

“The greens were soft, the ball was going far, there wasn’t a lot of wind,” D’Amore said. “It was just kind of one of those perfect recipes where you got some guys that could play some good golf and the golf course really just didn’t have a ton of defense because of the conditions.”

Loyola Marymount was two shots off the lead entering the final round and was paired with Washington State and Western Carolina on the last day. All three teams fed off each other with birdies flying.

As his team approached the final four holes, D’Amore texted his assistant coach Michael McCabe that he thought his team would need to reach 55 under to come out ahead of Washington State.

The closing gauntlet backed everyone up.

“Once we got to 16, 17, 18 it was a lot of playing telephone and trying to figure out where we were,” D’Amore said.

D’Amore and McCabe tried to gather as much intel as they could in the final holes and help their players make the best decisions possible. In the end, they edged Washington State by one shot. D’Amore was proud of the way his players remained in the present to finish the job.

A win in the first tournament out has the effect of creating a platform on which a team can build the rest of the season. The Lions last won a team title in the spring of 2021, when they won two tournaments back-to-back.

“One of the guys said something about, this makes the 5:30 a.m. wakeup calls for workouts worth it,” D’Amore said. “My response was it does, but it also makes you excited for the next 5:30 a.m. workout because you know that those days are what leads to winning a championship and having a chance to win.”

When you’ve got this kind of momentum, D’Amore notes, you don’t want much time off. Loyola Marymount was headed back home to Los Angeles after the True Blue title only to head north to San Francisco in another four days to play the USF/Howard Intercollegiate at TPC Harding Park.

“If we didn’t play great this week,” he said, “we’d be hoping we had awhile but since we played well, it will be nice to get going again.”

No rest for the winners.

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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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Robbie Fields steps in as Jacksonville State holds off trending Wright State to win 2022 Golfweek Fall Challenge

It’s Jacksonville State’s first team title since the Bash at the Beach 18 months ago.

A picture still lives on Robbie Fields’ phone in which Fields, the head women’s golf coach and acting men’s coach at Jacksonville State University, stands behind a middle-school version of one of his current men’s players. The 26-year-old coach was a senior on the Hartselle (Alabama) High School golf team when senior Ross Napier was an eighth grader. The top of Napier’s head didn’t even reach Fields’ chin back then.

Needless to say, Fields is familiar with Napier’s game (and his family in general – Napier’s mother was Fields’ AP Environmental Science teacher). It seemed pretty poetic that Tuesday, in the final round of the 2022 Golfweek Fall Challenge at True Blue Golf Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Napier broke 70 for the first time as a collegian.

“He’s a guy who plays consistent golf, his short game is unbelievable and now he’s starting to strike the ball really well,” Fields noted.

For the most part, Fields was across the street at Caledonia Golf Club coaching the Gamecock women’s team (the men’s and women’s events run concurrently during the Golfweek Fall Challenge). He walked the par-5 ninth hole with Napier in the second round and watched Napier make double-bogey there.

“I told him I’d take the blame for messing him up,” Fields laughed.

It was a minor blip, though, because Jacksonville State won the event by two strokes over Wright State after reaching 28 under for 54 holes. Napier tied for seventh with teammate Eric Jansson when both finished the tournament at 7 under. Ultimately, Ryley Heath, a transfer from Calhoun Community College, dropped 30-foot birdie putts on Nos. 16 and 17 in the fall round to help the Gamecocks stay two shots about Wright State. Heath was T-3 individually at 11 under.

Coastal Carolina’s Trey Crenshaw won the individual title at 18 under, five shots better than Wright State’s Tyler Goecke.

Coastal Carolina's Trey Crenshaw
Coastal Carolina’s Trey Crenshaw holds the trophy after winning the individual title at the 2022 Golfweek Fall Challenge at True Blue Golf Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

There are old ties there for Fields, too. Heath also attended Hartselle High School, and Fields has known him since he was 8 years old. The clutch performance came as no surprise.

“It’s not that he was a surprise because he had a great summer, he’s playing some really great golf and it’s almost like he’s unphased,” Fields said. “I wouldn’t always tell somebody at that moment where we stood as a team … but he’s one where nothing really bothers him.”

Despite the familiar faces, Fields is very much in new territory. Three weeks into his new job as head women’s golf coach, he was promoted to acting men’s coach, replacing James Hobbs, a Gamecock institution. Now he’s juggling two rosters and 20 players. Patricio Freundt-Thurne, who graduated last season after four years playing for the now-retired Hobbs, stayed on as a men’s assistant and helped the Gamecocks navigate True Blue.

Asked what he expects his future holds at Jacksonville State, Fields says he is sticking with the women – despite the fact that the men’s team is advocating for him to remain in their orbit, too.

“The way that I want to do things and the attention that I want to show the players, it’s just not really easy to do with 20 players,” Fields said. “I’ve told them I’m happy to be helping them. The guys have made it really hard to not give them as much attention as I’m trying to give the girls because they’ve been so awesome. I told them I’m going to do everything I can for you now but I really want them to be able to have somebody to give them a lot of attention.”

Despite feeling as if his attention is split in too many directions, Fields can talk in-depth about every player in his lineup at True Blue. Jansson, he explains, they call The Machine for his day-in, day-out work ethic. Gabriel Restrepo, who finished T-25 individually and was the fourth counting Gamecock score, played through illness the first two rounds before breaking 70 on the final day.

“We’ve got seven guys at home that at any given day could step into the lineup and do the same thing we did this week,” he said. “That kind of competition is good for the team. The lineup, because I’m not with them as much for their qualifying, the lineup is pretty much going to be based on scores and qualifying. The lineup is probably going to be pretty different throughout the year just because there’s so much competition. I think any given day they’re going to go out and compete.”

Before winning the Golfweek Fall Challenge, Jacksonville State hadn’t won a team title since the Bash at the Beach in March 2021. Runner-up Wright State couldn’t have a different story, however.

After winning their season opener at Ball State, their 10th team title in their last 14 starts, the Raiders came up two shots short at True Blue. Wright State led the field in birdies but ultimately, head coach Conner Lash said, the tournament came down to True Blue’s closing gauntlet. The Raiders made too many big numbers on 16, 17 and 18.

It can be tough to battle big expectations, Lash said, but the team is pretty good at taking things one shot at a time.

“You take the positives from the year before, we had a lot of success and I think we had a lot of confidence coming into this year and the guys were playing good golf over the summer so I think we just kind of rode the momentum and the confidence,” he said. “We won last week, got second this week so there’s still a lot of positives, lot of momentum we can take.”

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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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Delaware charts massive comeback, overtakes Mercer for Golfweek Fall Challenge title

Mercer looked to have an insurmountable lead at True Blue Golf Club, but Delaware pulled off a comeback anyway.

Before Delaware teed off in the final round of its season opener on Tuesday, head coach Patty Post dredged up a pre-COVID memory. Playing in the Loyola Intercollegiate in February 2020, before the spring season was shut down in light of the pandemic, Delaware posted a school-record round of 21 under.

“I said this is probably the best course for you guys after that one,” Post said of revisiting that round at True Blue Golf Club in Myrtle Beach on Tuesday. “It was not a big speech, it was not bringing everybody together.”

At the time, Mercer’s lead at the Golfweek Fall Challenge looked insurmountable. The Bears had played the first 36 holes in 29 under and Delaware was trailing them by 17 shots.

Delaware’s four counters contributed three birdies on True Blue’s first hole and the chase began. Ultimately, the Blue Hens went 18 under in the final round as Mercer cooled off to play that round in even par. That gave Delaware the one-shot victory at 30 under.

Scores: Golfweek Fall Challenge

“We all know at True Blue – the getable holes are the first 15,” said Post. “Then 16, 17 and 18 is going to be where if there’s any fluctuation with a bogey or two, it’s going to be on those holes coming in.”

Post made sure to plant herself at the closing gauntlet, and Delaware’s counters skated through No. 16 with three pars and a bogey and posted four pars at No. 17.

Players input their own scores during the tournament, so the standings were no secret.

“They’re seeing it,” Post said of the run her team was making. “You don’t want them to but they are.”

By the time Delaware’s No. 1 player Roberto Nieves reached the 18th hole, the Blue Hens had a one-shot lead. Delaware’s women’s team had crossed the street from Caledonia Golf Club, where they were competing in the women’s division of the Fall Challenge, and crowded the porch overlooking True Blue’s 18th green to see the finish.

Nieves sailed his approach shot past a front hole location and over a ridge in the middle of the green, leaving himself a 15-foot comebacker. Despite three-putting there, Delaware players erupted at the team’s one-shot victory.

No. 18 had ultimately been the decider, with Delaware playing the hole in 1 over and Mercer going 6 over there.

Post has been at the helm for the Blue Hens for five years and the Golfweek Fall Challenge marked the team’s first win in her tenure. It was the first win period since 2016.

“I think it just gives them confidence that they are capable,” she said.

Mercer head coach Jason Payne, who returned this season after coaching the Bears from 2003-2007 (his first head-coaching gig), has a motto that’s fitting for the way Tuesday’s final nine holes unfolded.

Payne is one of the masterminds behind the Any Given Tuesday social media platform in college golf. The idea that anything can happen on any given Tuesday (the day on which college golf tournaments typically finish) certainly played out at True Blue.

“It was great golf, it was pressure packed coming down the stretch,” Payne said. “Again I can’t say enough about how well Delaware played.”

Mercer had spent much of the past few weeks qualifying back home in Macon, Georgia, in 100-degree heat. After that grind, teeing it up at True Blue, a getable course with generous fairways, presented an opportunity to score that Payne’s men took advantage of.

“While no one is pleased to finish second at a tournament and give up the lead we had, if anything it will leave you a little hungry,” Payne said.

The season is young.

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After jumping two divisions, St. Thomas starts new era of competition at Golfweek Fall Challenge

St. Thomas jumped from Division III to Division I to start this college golf season.

Jack Nasby has always felt that St. Thomas was the perfect fit for him when it came to college. The Tommies senior, a native of Edina, Minnesota, got the perks of living in the metropolitan Minneapolis/St. Paul area while also being able to pursue a double major in finance and real estate with a minor in data analytics. He’ll be connected in the Tommies alumni network within the Twin Cities when he graduates.

And he got to play golf. Now, Nasby gets to check one more box at St. Thomas: Division I college golfer.

St. Thomas previously competed at the NCAA Division III level but beginning this year, will compete in Division I athletics. Nasby had heard the concept discussed as an underclassmen but never dreamed it would come to fruition while he was still on campus. He’s quick to acknowledge how much work it took across the board – from coaches to administrators – to transition St. Thomas from the Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the Division I Summit League.

“But it is definitely very exciting to get this opportunity to start a new journey,” he said.

Scores: Golfweek Fall Challenge

Nasby and his teammates kicked off the Division I era on Sunday at the Golfweek Fall Challenge. St. Thomas started strong but slid down the leaderboard at the end of the day as its five men played the closing three holes at True Blue Golf Club in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, in 16 over. Consider that the Tommies were only 19 over for the day.

So much of this season will be new experiences, and that encompasses everything from the teams St. Thomas will compete against to the grass they’ll play on. Nasby is used to Bentgrass in Minnesota, and tried to adapt quickly to the Bermuda at True Blue.

“Biggest different was the grain of the greens, I was paying attention to that with both chipping and putting,” he said.

Interim head coach Sean Barrett said his team has mainly competed in and around Minnesota over the past few seasons. In early qualifying, he tried to prepare his men to compete on longer courses. He tries to set them up from 7,000 yards as much as possible.

“I’d say that we compete – it’s probably 300 yards longer than what we had been competing in,” Barrett said of the yardage jump that came with the division change. “In Minnesota, we just played a lot of different types of courses. I don’t think many would qualify as a championship-style course.

“The quality of the course is much better and there’s certainly more length.”

St. Thomas men's golf
St. Thomas men’s golf is competing at the Division I level for the first time this fall. (Golfweek photo/Landon Ringler)

St. Thomas was a regular at the Division III National Championship, qualifying eight times over the past 11 years. Barrett was once in that boat, having played three years for the Tommies after transferring from Iowa State after his freshman season.

Now, Barrett works in financial planning. After graduating from St. Thomas in 2010, he bounced around mini tours before returning to the Twin Cities and coaching a high school golf team. Mounds Park Academy in St. Paul won three state titles at the Class 1A level from 2014 to 2018 while Barrett had the reins.

While coaching at Mounds Park, Barrett also started to pitch in for former St. Thomas coach Scott Proshek.

“Coaching has always been something I loved and enjoyed doing,” he said.

Barrett has talked with his men about playing the same course as everyone else – now there’s just a smaller margin for error and more travel time. St. Thomas will round out the fall with starts at the Drake Invite and Omaha Invite. Also on the new schedule? South Dakota State’s annual spring event in Las Vegas.

“We just know that if we want to have the success we had at the Division III level, we have to keep raising the bar on what our personal expectations are and refine our game to match,” he said.

Let the new era continue.

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