Big Brothers Big Sisters

Today we participated in a great event in Belleville, IL, where we helped set up, serve pizza, nachos and drinks. We also helped with lane supervision of 300 kids. Everyone had a great time and we look forward to helping again next year. Here are some pictures of the event.

Taylor Cox Signs With Cougars

The early signing period has come to an end and we are proud to announce that Taylor Cox of Columbia, MO has signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the Cougars. First announced on siuecougars.com, Cox comes in with a very impressive golfing background. Taylor is the number 1 ranked Senior in the state of Missouri according the the National Junior Golf Scoreboard. He is the defending 4A state champion in the state of Missouri, which he won as a junior. He also won the 2009 Little People's Tournament held in Quincy, IL, with scores of 66 and 75. The 66 was a tournament course record. He also finished third in the Missouri Junior firing a 73-67. In the 2008, Taylor qualified for the Big I Championship with scores of 74 and 69. Taylor has shown the ability to compete against the best and will come in and have a direct impact on next year's team.

Taylor is also an outstanding student and will represent SIUE very well on and off the golf course. He is not only a great golfer, but was named first team All-District in Soccer and as a Senior led Hickman High School to a third place finish at the State Tournament.

On behalf of the Men's Golf Team at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, I would like to thank everyone is has taken part in our Pledge for Birdies program. Your donation has allowed us to purchase some more equipment, while offsetting many travel costs.

This fall the Pledge for Birdies campaign produced many great donations to the men's program, and we have received many great pledged to make our birdies worth $15.00. At the halfway point of our season, we have made 107 birdies. We are going to play in the same amount of tournaments in the spring and hope that we can make as many birdies in the spring. If we meet our goal of 200 birdies for the season, we will have brought in $3,000 from this effort. We have also received many generous donations aside from the Birdies Pledge resulting in an additional $1,500 for our program. We are all very excited about how this first year has produced such great results and support from our family and friends.

We have had many highlights throughout the fall including two top ten finishes as a team at Murray State and the Austin Peay Intercollegiate. Neal McCarty has had two top-ten individual finishes, and Matt Lehl has produced one top-ten finish. At the mid-point of our season Neal is ranked 10th (73.09) in the conference scoring average, and Matt is ranked 22nd (74.09). We have seen very consistent play from Tom Callahan who finished the year with a bogey free round of 70 that included a chip in on the last hole for birdie. That chip in was important as we ended up beating Northern Illinois and Tennessee Tech by one shot. Nick Nuzzo has shown at a couple of tournaments that he show up in the clutch by bringing in some much needed scores when we needed him the most. Freshman Alex Knoll has really made an impact, competing in all four events and shooting 75 or under in his first five collegiate rounds. Freshman Clark Schmidt has competed in two events and made his first hole in one during a qualifying round at Sunset Hills CC. Clark hit a 3 iron from 220 yards for his first ace. We are all looking forward to the return this spring of Tony Ross. Tony has been out with a nagging wrist injury that we all hope is healed once the spring season starts. Tony will add some depth to the team and qualifying rounds.

We again thank you for your support. I will try to update this blog as often as possible to keep our family and friends informed on what is going on at SIUE. I will be sending a final invoice with your pledge and the amount of birdies we have made after April 26, 2010. If you donated $1.00 or $3.00 a birdie, please email me at derbrow@siue.edu with the size of shirt you will be receiving for your donation. We hope for your continued support in the future. Have a great holiday season!

Coach Brown

F&M Bank APSU Intercollegiate

We are back from our last tournament in the fall. We played at the Links at Novadell located right outside of Hopkinsville, KY and played well. We placed 9th out of 17 schools with scores of 302-290-289=881. Neal McCarty placed 10th place out of 93 golfers with scores of 73-71-71. Neal finished the tournament with 11 birdies and that number could have been much higher with many putts that lipped out. Matt Lehl also had a strong finish with a 16th place finish with scores of 76-71-70. Matt finished his last round of 70 with back to back birdies and helped move us ahead two teams that we finished one stroke better than. Overall, we are very happy with the progress this tournament showed. Our conference, the Ohio Valley Conference, had all ten teams at this tournament and we finished 5th out of 10.

We are now done for the fall season and have some work to do this offseason to get ready for the spring. Our next tournament is located in Oneata, Alabama at a tournament hosted by Samford University on March 8 and 9.

Again, I want to say thanks to everyone that has helped with the Pledge for Birdie campaign. We appreciate your support and following our progress throughout the year!

Coach Brown

D.A Weibring Intercollegiate

We just finished up our 3rd round at the D.A Weibring Intercollegiate and showed some positive signs of improvement. After shooting 315 and 304 the first two rounds, we shot the fourth best round of the day on Monday at 301. Neal McCarty and Matt Lehl again paced the team with another top 20 finish both finishing at 226 and a tie for 17th. On Monday Tom Callahan led the team with a 73 which included many great shots. We finished T-12 but were only 5 shots out of 8th place.

Overall our scores were 315-304-301=920
Neal McCarty 77-74-75
Matt Lehl 78-74-74
Tom Callahan 77-78-73
Alex Knoll 85-82-79
Nick Nuzzo 83-78-88
Individual Clark Schmidt 84-80-77

D.A Weibring Intercollegiate

A little information about the D.A Weibring Intercollegiate-

The tournament is hosted by Illinois State University at the Weibring Golf Club in Normal, IL. The course is a par 70 and is 6681 yards. Participating teams in the Weibring Intercollegiate are Bradley University, Butler University, Creighton, Detroit Mercy, Eastern Illinois, Illinois State, Loyola University-Chicago, Loyola University-Maryland, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri State University, University of Northern Iowa, South Dakota State, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Western Illinois.

I will try to post results after each round so family and friends can keep up with SIUE golf!

Welcome to the SIUE Men's Golf Blog

Hello and welcome to the SIUE Men's Golf Blog. The 2009-10 season has already begun and throughout the season this blog will help everyone keep up with the season results, birdies made and much more. I have added some features on the right side of the page that will give you our season scores, birdies that we have made for our supporters in the Pledge For Birdies fundraiser and a chance for you to meet our team. I hope to be able to add pictures and stats as the season moves forward.

As for the update to the season thus far. We went down to Pineville, KY and competed in a tournament hosted by Morehead State We found ourselves in a early hole that we just could not dig ourselves out of. We did have many bright spots as Freshman Alex Knoll shot 75-75-74 in his first collegiate tournament. Junior Neal McCarty was the low man shooting 72-74-74, good enough for 16th place.

In our next tournament in Murray, KY, hosted by Murray State we fared better placing 7th out of 14 schools. We were pleased that we came back and defeated some of the teams we had lost to the previous week. The event was shortened to 36 holes due to thunderstorms on Tuesday. We had two top ten finishers, Matt Lehl and Neal McCarty, both tying for 9th place. Neal shot 71-72 and Matt shot 70-73. Alex Knoll had another strong outing shooting 75-75 to claim 43rd. The Cougars were making a move on Tuesday through 8 holes when they canceled the meet as Alex was about to go 3 under, Neal was even, Matt was 1 over, but the skies opened up and the course became unplayable.

Next, we are off to Illinois State where we will face a tough 15 team field in what the forecast says will be a high both days of around 44 degrees. Again, thanks to all of the supporters of Cougar Golf.