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. 

E.Y Invitational

We are getting ready for our last tournament of the year as we head to Muncie, IN and play in the Earl Yestingmeier Invitational hosted by Ball State University.  We have played this tournament before and adds a different element of a 6 count 5 event in place of the normal 5 count 4.  This will really test our depth but we look forward to seeing how we compete.  The field is good and includes Austin Peay, Ball State, Butler, Cincinnati, Cleveland State, Dayton, DePaul, Eastern Kentucky, Louisville, SIUE, Ohio, Valpo, Wright State, Youngstown State and Vincennes.  We haven't received our pairings yet but will hopefully post or get it up on our twitter account on Friday.  Remember to check in as I try to give updates on the guys and our team throughout the tournament @SIUEMensGolf. 

Lineup:

1. Alex Knoll
2. Mitchell Homb
3. Grant Wynia
4. Taylor Cox
5. Colin McCarty
6. Taylor White

NXY Hoosier Invitational

Sorry in the delay of the last couple posts as we have been crazy busy this past week with two tournaments in 7 days.  I am seeing so many positives from our guys right now that are not showing up in the scores.  We have for the most part been ball striking really well but have just been struggling from 100 yards and in.  We finished 11th out of 15 at IU but were only 8 shots out of 7th.  We are really close to breaking through and I have so much hope for this team in the coming years.  Mitchell Homb recorded a new career low in the first round of the IU tournament with a 70 and followed it with a 72.  He also made a great comeback the last round after a tough start to shoot 76 making an eagle 3 on his 17th hole of the day.  Colin McCarty fought the putter all week but birdied 3 of his last 4 on Sunday to shoot 75.  Grant Wynia also kept together a good round the last day after starting 3 over through 2 to shoot 75.  Although, we are not happy with 11th place this week, I have seen so many positives from our guys the last two weeks it gets me excited for Ball State in a couple weeks and for the years to come.  We have some very good talent and are only going to get better after all the experience we have gained this year with a young team.  I know the guys are excited to finish up this year at Ball State and work very hard this summer so we are ready to go next year in our first year competing for an OVC championship. 

1	Northwestern	281	277	283	841	-11
	2	IUPUI	291	274	287	852	E
	3	Indiana	285	285	283	853	+1
	4	Detroit Mercy	290	286	285	861	+9
	5	Evansville	286	290	291	867	+15
	6	Wright State	295	285	292	872	+20
	7	Ohio	293	283	298	874	+22
	8	IPFW	285	295	298	878	+26
	9	Butler	294	288	297	879	+27
	10	Western Illinois	299	281	301	881	+29
	11	SIUE	290	292	300	882	+30
	12	Illinois State	294	291	298	883	+31
	13	Dayton	297	295	299	891	+39
	14	Oakland	307	298	309	914	+62
	15	Youngstown State	310	302	310	922	+70

I want to thank the support that we have had all year from parents and friends that have taken time to come out to watch us play.  It does mean a lot to me and our guys that we have the support we do.  I will post more about the Ball State Invitational soon as we get a little closer to it next week.  That event will be a little different in that we will play a 6 count 5 event which differs from our normal 5 count 4 events.  This is the only tournament of the year that we play like this which will showcase the teams with more depth.  We are looking forward to it as it allows another player tournament experience and further gets us ready for next year. 

I am getting better at updating my twitter account (@SIUEMensGolf) throughout the round if you would like to follow me. 

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend and hope to see some of you at Ball State next week!

Coach Brown

Lineup for Arkansas State

We leave tomorrow morning and will be taking 6 guys as we have an individual playing this week.  Our lineup will be:

1. Taylor Cox
2. Alex Knoll
3. Mitchell Homb
4. Colin McCarty
5. Taylor White
IND.- Grant Wynia

Hope to see some of you down in Jonesboro this week!  Continue to check my twitter account @SIUEMensGolf for updates throughout the rounds on Monday and Tuesday.

Arkansas State Red Wolf Intercollegiate

After a couple weeks off after Samford's tournament we are ready to go this Saturday to Jonesboro, AR.  This is one of my favorite stops during the season.  It is a fun golf course that our teams seems to play well at.  They also treat you great at this tournament with great food and hospitality.  The field has always been good and deep at this tournament and this year is no different and maybe even a little tougher than years past.  It will be a great opportunity to see some teams we saw earlier in the year and pick up some wins!  This year's field includes: Arkansas State, Arkansas-Little Rock, Austin Peay, Depaul, Eastern Illinois, Jacksonville St., Louisiana Monroe, Meridan CC, Missouri State, Murray State, Northern Iowa, Oklahoma City, Oral Roberts, SIUC, SIUE, Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee State, Texas Pan American, Troy, Vanderbilt and Belmont.

We are taking one individual to this tournament who will play for a championship but not compete in our team score.  The lineup is almost set with one more round to complete.  I will post our lineup this week before we head down to Jonesboro.

After Arkansas State we will only be back on campus to two days before we head back on the road to Bloomington, IN to play in Indiana University's Invitational.  I will post more about that tournament and the teams competing next week!  Thanks again for reading (we surpassed 8,500 views) and hope to see some of you at the next couple of tournaments!!

Getting Ready For Arkansas State

We have a couple weeks off and are going to use this awesome weather to practice and play as much as we can.  We are having a 90 hole qualifier that will set our team for Arkansas State on April 2 and 3.  The 18 team field is very good and deep this year.  The course is one of my favorites that we play all year and love the way they treat us in Jonesboro. 

Remember that I have linked our twitter account to this blog that you can click on for more updates on the team.  You do not have to have an account to read the twitter updates.  Thanks again for following and your support!

Samford Invitational

We are back from Birmingham and the Samford Invitational.  Most of our guys are home for a little break from school and golf and will be ready to go when they get back on Monday.  We struggled at Samford, but I know these young men have so much talent ready to burst out I am so excited to get down to Jonesboro, AR in 3 weeks!  We struggled with the golf course down at Samford and didn't adjust like we needed to, but I still saw lots of positives from the guys.

We also got to golf our conference golf course, Greystone GC, in Dickson, TN on our way back to Edwardsville on Wednesday and really seemed to fit our team.  A links style golf course that is both scorable and tricky.  16,17 and 18 are great finishing holes that will put a great end to any conference championship too.  I hope the guys enjoyed the course as much as I did.

Below are the results from Samford:

1 Samford University       291  288  303    882   +18 
T  2 Austin Peay State U.     297  302  292    891   +27 
T  2 Davidson College         298  289  304    891   +27 
   4 Sam Houston St. U.       299  291  303    893   +29 
T  5 Belmont University       298  298  308    904   +40 
T  5 Western Carolina U.      313  293  298    904   +40 
T  5 Winthrop University      308  295  301    904   +40 
   8 Houston Baptist Univ     303  303  301    907   +43 
   9 Murray State Univ.       312  298  302    912   +48 
  10 Eastern Kentucky U.      310  303  304    917   +53 
  11 Air Force Academy        321  300  300    921   +57 
  12 Evansville, U. of        311  295  316    922   +58 
  13 Southern Illinois U.     305  318  303    926   +62 
  14 Illinois State U.        325  310  306    941   +77 
T 15 SIU Edwardsville         314  306  322    942   +78 
T 15 UT Martin                323  302  317    942   +78 
T 17 Nicholls State           321  312  316    949   +85 
T 17 Tennessee Tech U.        317  316  316    949   +85 

Samford Invitational

We finished our last qualifier today for the Samford Invitational and making the trip this week will be: Taylor White, Taylor Cox, Alex Knoll, Grant Wynia and Mitchell Homb.  This will be the third tournament in a row where we are using a different lineup.  This tournament has a great field and will be a very good test for our guys.  Teams that will be competing are: Samford, SIUE, SIUC, Tennessee Tech, Murray State, Sam Houston State, Air Force, Austin Peay, UT-Martin, Davidson, Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, Houston Baptist, Illinois State, Nicholls State, Winthop, Evansville and Western Carolina

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION

Dates:  Monday, March 5 – Tuesday, March 6

Schedule:  First two rounds will be played Monday, with the final round scheduled for Tuesday

Start times:  8 a.m. (CST) shotgun start Monday, followed by an 8:30 a.m., start Tuesday

Course:  Hoover Country Club (Par 72 - - 7,001 yards)

Location:  Hoover, Ala.

Snowman Getaway results

We are back from Phoenix with very successful results from the Snowman Getaway.  We shot 292-309-298 which was good enough from 8th place out of 16 teams.  Our guys played well for our first tournament of the spring and we beat some good teams.  After our first round 292 we were in fourth place and slipped to T-5 after 36 holes.  We played some good consistent golf in our last round shooting 298, but needed to go a little lower to keep pace with our playing partners, Washington State and UNC Greensboro.  We got some great experience playing with some really good teams and competing for another title.

SIUE Player Results:
Alex Knoll- 73-78-73=224--T-23rd
Mitchell Homb- 78-73-75=226--T-35th
Colin McCarty- 70-78-81= 229--50th
Taylor Cox- 75-80-75=230--T51st
Taylor White-74-81-75=230 --T51st

I want to thank all of our supporters who came out to watch us!  I think we might have had the most fans there!

1    UMKC                     288  304  285    877   +13 
   2 Missouri St. U.          292  303  283    878   +14 
   3 UNCG                     296  305  289    890   +26 
T  4 British Columbia, U.     284  312  295    891   +27 
T  4 St. John's Univ.         293  307  291    891   +27 
   6 Washington State U.      295  307  290    892   +28 
   7 Utah State Univ.         301  305  292    898   +34 
   8 SIU Edwardsville         292  309  298    899   +35 
   9 Utah Valley Univ.        297  304  301    902   +38 
  10 Loyola Univ-Maryland     290  312  303    905   +41 
  11 Gonzaga University       297  316  301    914   +50 
  12 Bradley University       298  321  296    915   +51 
  13 Seattle University       299  335  297    931   +67 
  14 North Dakota, U. of      310  317  308    935   +71 
  15 St. Bonaventure U.       312  336  315    963   +99 
  16 South Dakota, U. of      323  334  329    986  +122 

Snowman Getaway

Our lineup is set for the Snowman Getaway in Phoenix next week.  We will be playing at Palm Valley GC for the tournament which is hosted by Washington State University.  Our lineup for the Snowman is:
Alex Knoll- JR
Taylor Cox- SO
Mitchell Homb- FR
Colin McCarty- FR
Taylor White- FR

Teams playing in the event include: Washington State, UNC-Greensboro, Bradley, SIUE, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri State, Gonzaga, Loyola-MD, Utah Valley, UMKC, St. Bonaventure, Utah State, Utah Valley, Seattle, St. John's, and British Columbia.  We are paired the first two rounds with North Dakota, St. Bonaventure and British Columbia.

Qualifying starts today for our spring break trip to Birmingham that we leave for in two weeks.  We hope to get in 45 holes before we leave on March 3.  Thanks again for following and supporting SIUE Golf and look forward to seeing some of you down in Phoenix next week!

Also, follow me at SIUEMensGolf on twitter for updates during our tournament rounds. 

Twitter Link

I have added a Twitter Link in the right column of the blog.  This will be the best way to give updates during the round and throughout our tournaments.  You also do not need a Twitter account to read the updates.  You just have to click on the link and it will direct you to our Twitter page. 

New Indoor Facility

As we get ready for our first tournament in Phoenix we have a new indoor facility to help us work on our game.  Our Softball program has just finished a $1,000,000 facility that will allow us to have up to 8 guys hitting in the cages at one time.  It will also allow us to work on our short game with plenty of space for short game drills.  Here are a couple of pictures that I took this morning.  Thanks again to SIUE Softball!

SIUE selected to host ESPNU on January 21st against Murray State

Our home game against Murray State has been picked up by ESPNU on January 21st.  Murray, who is currently undefeated and ranked 14th in the nation, will be a tough test.  We are expecting a sold out crowd and a great atmosphere in the Vadalabene Center so tune in and cheer for the Cougars.



http://www.siuecougars.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/010412aab.html

SIUE Men post highest team GPA in Athletic Department

Back to school for another semester and we started off the year with great news in that we have achieved the highest team GPA in the athletic department for the second consecutive semester!  Our team GPA was a 3.51 and had 4 guys make the Dean's List.  Having the highest GPA is a big goal for our team and something we strive for every semester.  Here is a link to the story:  http://www.siuecougars.com/genrel/010912aaa.html

As we get back in the swing of things we are greeted by some outstanding weather and currently am writing this when it is 51 degrees outside on January 9th!  I hope this weather can stay around for us and we can begin outside practice on February 1st.  As much time as we can get outside before our first meet would be great. During January we will still be hitting indoors but in a great new facility. Our Softball program dedicated their new $1 million dollar facility last night that has the ability to host our indoor hitting needs.  This will really help our indoor hitting needs during the winter months.

I also have started a Twitter account for the team that I think will help me update better during our rounds.  If you would like to follow us our twitter name is @siuemensgolf.