Fall Recap

I am sorry that I have fallen so behind on this blog and updating throughout this fall, but we do have a lot of great accomplishments that cannot go unnoticed.  We competed in 5 tournaments this past fall at Nebraska, Illinois State, Depaul, UMKC and Austin Peay.  Here are a couple of accomplishments from the fall season:

-We finished our last 3 tournaments in the top 5, including a 4th place finish at Depaul.

-Individually we have 5 players with a winning record (McCarty 138-17-2, Homb 249-123-18, Charboneau 245-127-18, White 189-182-19 and Cox 164-129-20).

-We battled back from a couple of tough tournaments early to post a 28-11 record our last 3 events. 

-Colin McCarty won the F&M Bank Austin Peay Intercollegiate with a 69-70-68, which is the 4th best 54 hole total in school history.

-Colin McCarty's 71.5 stroke average has landed him 24th in Division 1 scoring average and is currently ranked 173rd in the country according to golfstat.com

-Freshman Dalton Charboneau tied for 7th at the D.A Weibring Invitational in just his second collegiate event where he bested Thomas Pieters, the defending NCAA Champion from Illinois.

-This fall we have already had 16 rounds at par or better by 5 different players.

-We had 10 individual finishes inside the top 20 with Charboneau and Homb leading the way with 3 each.  McCarty has 2, and White and Cox have 1 each.

-We finished the fall season shooting 7 consecutive rounds at 298 or better

-Colin McCarty and Dalton Charboneau both earned OVC Player of the Week Awards this fall

I have some high hopes for this team this spring as we prepare for our first OVC Championship in April.  We are deeper than we have ever been, and the competition in qualifiers has been great.  Our first tournament in the spring is the Snowman Getaway hosted by Washington State.  Also in the field will be Missouri, Minnesota, Kansas State, UNC-Greensboro, and others.  It will be one of the toughest tests we will face all year, but with a good off season, I know we can compete at a high level at the Snowman Getaway and throughout the spring.

Here is a look at our spring schedule:

Washington State                            Snowman Getaway                               February 25-26, 2013

SE Louisiana                                   Carter Plantation Intercollegiate            March 18-19, 2013

Arkansas State                                Red Wolves Intercollegiate                   April 1-2, 2013

Indiana                                            Hoosier Invitational                              April 6-7, 2013

Tennessee State                              Big Blue Invitational                              April 15-16, 2013

OVC                                              OVC Conference Championship             April 25-27, 2013

I will try to update this blog more this spring, but please follow us on Twitter where I do updates during and after our rounds. My Twitter handle is @SIUEMensGolf.

I also want to thank everyone who participated in the Pledge for Birdie campaign!  It was by far the best response we have ever had with donations adding up to $27.25 per birdie!  I have sent out the invoices and very much appreciate everyone's donation.  I also want to thank all the support we have had this fall.  It is always great to see parents, grandparents, friends, etc. come out to our events.  I hope to see some of you this spring as well.  

And if you haven't noticed we went over 10,000 views on this blog!  Thanks again for supporting SIUE Golf! 

Coach Brown  

Summer months and 2012-13 schedule

As of today, we have 13 days until the first day of practice and most of the guys will be back in town next week!  It has been a busy summer for me recruiting and traveling with family, but I am ready to get everyone back and start back up. 

We have had a couple more great academic achievements this summer as our team was recognized by the Golf Coaches Association as an All-Academic Team.  We were one of two teams from the Ohio Valley Conference that was recognized.  We also, for the second straight year, won the OVC Team Academic Achievement Award given to the top academic team in the conference.  We are continuing to show how important academics are to our program and how hard they guys work in the classroom.  It was a proud summer for me to have the team recognized for these two awards.

Our guys have been out playing in many tournaments this summer gaining valuable tournament experience.  Many have played in their respective state am's and match play tournaments along with many other USGA qualifiers.  Colin McCarty played well in the Southwestern AM placing 27th with a 72 hole total of 293.  Mitchell Homb won his third Lincoln Highway tournament in July.  Incoming Dalton Charboneau qualified for the National JR PGA Championship after shooting 4 under 140 to win the MN JR Section.

Our schedule has been released for the 12-13 season and I think it will be very competitive.  We will play 11 tournaments in 9 different states giving us great competition from all over the country.  We have a few new tournaments this year adding UMKC' Bill Ross Invitational in the fall, Southeastern Louisiana's Carter Plantation Intercollegiate in Springfield, LA about an hour north of New Orleans in March and Tennessee State's Big Blue tournament in Nashville.  Of course we have added the OVC Conference Tournament to our schedule.  Last year we played schools from 21 different conferences and hope to be around that number again. 

Here is the full schedule:

University of Nebraska                  Fairway Club Invitational               September 10-11, 2012

Illinois State                                        D.A. Weibring Invite                       September 22-23, 2012

Depaul                                                  Dallio Memorial                                October 6-7, 2012

Missouri-Kansas City                      Bill Ross Invitational                        October 15-16, 2012

Austin Peay                                        APSU Intercollegiate                      October 22-23, 2012

Washington State                            Snowman Getaway                        February 25-26, 2013

Southeastern Louisiana                 Carter Plantation Intercollegiate  March 18-19, 2013

Arkansas State                                  Red Wolves Intercollegiate          April 1-2, 2013

Indiana                                                 Hoosier Invitational                         April 6-7, 2013

Tennessee State                              Big Blue Invitational                        April 15-16, 2013

OVC                                                       OVC Conference Championship                April 25-27, 2013

And finally if you did not see the release we have received word from the NCAA that we have passed our certification officially to Division 1.  As of last week we are now an official member of Division 1!  

I hope everyone is having a great summer.  I hope to see some of you out this fall or next spring at our tournaments!  

Coach Brown

Highest Team GPA Again!!

It is now official that we have earned the highest team GPA in the department for the 3rd straight semester.  Our guys earned a team GPA of 3.48 this semester giving us a year GPA of 3.497!  Very proud of the guys as they work very hard during the year in the classroom. 

Here is a link to the release on siuecougars.com:  http://www.siuecougars.com/genrel/053112aaa.html

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Summer Months and SIUE Golf Scramble

I hope everyone is having a great summer and getting out and playing some golf!  In the coming months I hope to keep everyone updated on how our guys are doing in their summer tournaments.  Our guys look to have a strong summer schedule put together between all of them. 

Now that May is coming to an end that means it is time for me to hit the road to recruit for 2013.  This is always a fun time for me to get out and watch some great golf and meet a bunch of new people. 

Our 3rd Annual Golf Scramble is August 25th this year and hope that as many of you as possible can make it.  It is a double shotgun start with 36 teams in each session.  Those sessions are at 7:30 am and 1:00 pm.  Entry is $700 per team and if you mark that you would like your entry fee to go to Men's Golf it WILL go straight to our program.  This is our biggest fundraiser of the year to help support mostly our travel costs as we add our conference championship next year to the schedule.  Here is a link to the brochure. 

http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/genrel/2011-12/19313_proof.pdf

With the golf you will receive breakfast, lunch and reception with hors d'oeuvres and free drinks on the course.  Please contact me with any questions you may have at 618-650-2865 or derbrow@siue.edu.  Last year we had 10 teams play for Men's Golf and we are trying for a couple more this year!  This is a great way to have alumni and friends of Men's Golf come together to help support our Division 1 golf team!

New siuecougars.com and Special Olympics

We have unveiled a new www.siuecougars.com and it looks great!  Take a look at our new site when you get a chance and take a look around.  Our sports information team did a great job with the design and is very user friendly. 

On Saturday, our team volunteered with the rest of the SIUE athletes and staff for the annual Special Olympics meet at Korte Stadium on the SIUE campus.  The meet was a great success and our volunteers did a great job.  It is such a fun event to be a part of and watch the excitement of all the Special Olympics athletes throughout the day.  Here a few pictures from Saturday.

Homb voted to OVC All-Newcomer Team

Congrats to Mitchell Homb as he was voted this week to the OVC All-Newcomer Team!  It is some great news to end the season with and help all of us to strive for more awards next year.  Here is the link to the OVC release http://www.ovcsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&SPID=2449&SPSID=31105&ATCLID=205419490&DB_OEM_ID=6200

Also the SIUE release:  http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/m-golf/spec-rel/042612aaa.html

It was a rollercoaster season for us, but I know we have the talent to compete next year for tournament titles.  The guys are going home this summer and are going to work very hard on their games.  All have told me they will play a competitive summer schedule to give them more experience and be ready to go when we get back in the fall.  After a couple much needed weeks away, I know I will itching for the fall before we even get to June.

Thanks for all the support we received this year!  We very much appreciate it!  Remember to follow me on twitter as I will update as much as possible about the guys during the summer about their good finishes in summer tournaments.    

Dalton Charboneau- 2012 Signee

We have received our NLI from Dalton Charboneau of Brooklyn Park, MN (Osseo High School) and are happy that he will be joining us next fall as we continue toward our goal of becoming OVC champions.  Dalton was named 2nd team All-State as a Junior, tied for first place in the Minnesota Junior PGA Championship with rounds of 72-71, is a 4 time All-Conference golfer, has a low tournament round of 65, and has 10 1st place or runner up finishes in high school invitationals.  He is just starting his senior season as Minnesota High School golf is in the spring.  Already this spring he has claimed a tourney title featuring over a 100 individuals and claimed a 2nd place finish in another!  We look forward to having Dalton next year and I look forward to seeing him play the next four years.