An Unfortunate Injury and Pledge for Birdie News

We learned of some bad news this week when we found out that Matt Lehl will probably miss the rest of the season due to a broken arm and surgery on his shoulder. This is a big loss for our team as Matt was 2nd on the team in scoring average and a great competitor. We hope his recovery goes well so he can pursue his future job as a police officer.

After discussing with some of the guys on the team, we have decided to pick 4 of our 6 tournaments to count for the Birdie Pledge. The four tournaments we have selected will be the first two tournaments in Alabama (Samford and Jacksonville State) along with our Tennessee State tournament in Nashville and our final tournament that will count for our Birdie Pledge is the Arkansas State tournament on April 12-13. After the birdies are tallied I will send out the final invoice for the donation pledged. Last week we had another $1.50 a birdie donated to bring our total to 16.50 a birdie. Again, we want to thank everyone who has donated to our program.

Coach Brown

A great Invite

We have received and accepted an invitation to compete at the famed Crooked Stick GC in Carmel, IN, a tournament hosted by Indiana University. This is a great step for our program to be invited to a tournament with this great field. Some of the teams confirmed are top 30 schools: 11th ranked Illinois and 29th ranked Middle Tennessee State. Also in the field are Big Ten Conference schools Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana. Other schools confirmed are Xavier, Ball State, Wichita State and Butler.

Updated Spring Schedule

Well, we have made some changes and finalized our schedule for this coming spring. We are very excited about it as we have added a 5th tournament and are heading south four times. We are starting the spring season with a trip to Oneonta, AL for a 16 team tournament hosted by Samford University on March 7-9. Some of the confirmed teams are Vanderbilt University, Kennesaw State (both are ranked in the top 100), Murray State, UT-Martin and Belmont. It should be a great test for us to go up against some of the southern schools this early in the year. The tournament will be played at Limestone Springs, which was voted the top place you can play in Alabama in Golfweek Magazine.

Our second tournament of the year will send us back down to Alabama for a tournament hosted by fellow OVC member Jacksonville State on March 21-23. Some confirmed teams at this tournament will be Austin Peay, Stetson, Tennessee Tech and Tennessee-Martin. It will be played at Silver Lakes Golf Course, which is part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. It will be great to get down south for our first couple of tournaments to hopefully get some good weather to play in.

Our third tournament of the spring will be a short drive up to Macomb, IL for a tournament hosted by Western Illinois. It is nice to get into regional tournaments for traveling purposes and to show our support of other Illinois universities. It should be a large field and we will just hope for decent weather as the tournament is being played March 29-30. It could still be a little cold in Macomb at that time.

Our fourth tournament is a repeat tournament from last year as we head down to Tennessee State located in Nashville, TN on April 4-6. They have moved the tournament to a new course this year, King's Creek Golf Club. This is an Arnold Palmer designed course, which are a personal favorite of mine. We do not have any confirmed teams for this tournament yet, but will let everyone know when we get a little closer to that tournament.

Our fifth and final tournament of the year will be a great tournament at Arkansas State on April 11-13. Located in Jonesboro, AR, Ridge Point will be the tournament host and it looks great. I had heard many good things about this tournament from other coaches who said that if you ever get an invite to ASU, make sure you accept. We were lucky enough to get a late invite and thanks to generous donations we were able to go to this fifth tournament of the spring. Some of the confirmed teams here are Louisana-Monroe, Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Illinois State and Oral Roberts. This will be a great way to cap off our season.

Think Warm,
Coach Brown

Cougars Excel In The Classroom

Fall grades are out and I can say proudly that we had 3 student-athletes on the Dean's List. Junior Nick Nuzzo and Freshmen Alex Knoll and Clark Schmidt have been named to the Dean's List for Fall Semester 2009. Our team had a team GPA of 3.27, which ranked 2nd among all male sports at SIUE for the fall semester. Hard work in the classroom will continue to be a focal point for our program and this shows that we are heading in the right direction.

Coach Brown