This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster men's golf team is competing in this week's North Coast Athletic Conference Championships, which run April 29-May 1 at Westbrook Country Club in Mansfield, Ohio. This year's NCAC Championships has returned to a single-event, 54-hole format and is being hosted by Wittenberg University.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Golfstat live scoring and check WoosterAthletics.com for end-of-day recaps.
A Look-Back at the 2021 NCAC Championship Series: Wooster climbed a spot to finish in a tie for fifth-place at the 2021 NCAC Championships, which was a two-event, 36-hole format with 18 holes at Denison University Golf Club and 18 at Westbrook Country Club. Alumnus David Roney, the lone senior on last year's team, just missed on all-conference honors, as he tied for 16th-place at 159. Wooster shot a 643 for the championship series.
Wooster Picked Seventh in Pre-Championships Coaches' Poll: Wittenberg was the favorite by the coaches to capture the NCAC title this week, with the Tigers scoring eight of the nine first-place votes and registering 80 points. Kenyon College, which is looking for its first NCAC title, took second in the voting, collecting the final first-place vote and 71 points overall. Denison (65 points), Allegheny College (47 points), DePauw University (45 points), Wabash College (38 points), Wooster (26 points), Ohio Wesleyan University (24 points) and Hiram College (nine points) rounded out the poll.
Birdie Time: Birdies by sophomores David Dennis (Grove City, Pa./Grove City) and Tyler Hilbert (Plain City, Ohio/Jonathan Alder) on the par-5, 490-yard 10th hole at Hidden Creek Golf Club helped break a tie between Wooster and Tiffin University's "B" Team, and send the Scots home winners of Bluffton University's Spring Invitational. The tiebreaker format consisted of all five players in the lineup playing No. 10 and taking the lowest four scores on the hole. Wooster checked in at 2-under-par, thanks in large part to Dennis and Hilbert, while Tiffin went 1-under-par. The win marked the first for Wooster at a traditional tournament (four or more teams) since winning Miami University Hamilton's Harriers Fall Classic on September 30, 2018.
Steady Play Leads to Honors: First-year Krish Nayak (Bangalore, India/Mallya Aditi International School) shot 77-73-150 to lead Wooster at the Bluffton Spring Invitational. Nayak's score ranked third in the 76-competitor field, and he logged four birdies over the weekend, including two on No. 16, a par-5, 530-yard hole. Nayak had 11 pars on his card in each round. Nayak's 76.8 average is tied for tops on the team.
The Senior: Ben Foltz (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Gilmour Academy) a soon-to-be operations and services rotational analyst for Key Bank in Cleveland, is the lone senior on this year's team. Foltz is tied with Nayak for the team lead in average at 76.8 strokes. The computer science major has a trio of top-10 finishes this year. He tied for fourth-place with a 111 at the 27-hole John Carroll University Dan Caschera Invitational and had a 149 to tie for fifth-place at the University of Mount Union Fall Invitational. This spring, Foltz went 73-78-151 to tie for eighth place at the Mercyhurst University Spring Invite, a field comprised of primarily Div. II golfers.
Grove City Pipeline: Dennis, sophomore Jack Donahue (Grove City, Pa./Grove City), and first-year Sam Norris (Grove City, Pa./Grove City) were all high school teammates at Grove City High School. In fact, the trio were all in the lineup when Wooster competed at Grove City College's Fall Invite, where Wooster tied for third-place in the 17-team field. Dennis leads the teammates with an 80.2 average, while Norris is at 81.4 and Donahue at 85.3.
First-Year Success: Two of Wooster's three top scorers are first-years, as Noah Jackman (Worthington, Ohio/Thomas Worthington) has already made his mark on the program. Jackman's career got off to a roaring start with a 2-under-par 70 in the opening round of the Gatorade Collegiate. Jackman tied for third-place at the Mount Union Fall Invitational after shooting 148 and he made the top-10 at the Nye Intercollegiate with a single-round score of 80.
Ullom, Hilbert Round Out Top-Five Averages: One stroke is all that separates sophomores Jacob Ullom (Indianapolis, Ind./North Central) and Hilbert on the season. Both sport a 79.3 average through the NCAC/Ohio Athletic Conference Challenge. Ullom has 1,070 strokes over 13.5 rounds this year, while Hilbert is at 1,071.
Alumni Headed Back to U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships: Marcus Carano, a 2016 Wooster alumnus, sank a birdie on the par-5, 570-yard 18th hole at Mayfield Sand Ridge Club on October 4 to punch a ticket back to the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships. Carano and John Angelo '13 went 8-under-par to earn the final spot in the championships at the Northern Ohio Golf Association qualifier. Last year, Angelo and Carano were among the final 32 teams at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships.
Alumni Back in Spotlight: Scott Nye and Brendan Walsh, 1985 Wooster alumni who helped the men's golf team to a pair of top-10 finishes at the NCAA Div. III Championships, are back in the spotlight this year. Walsh, the club pro at historic The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, is hosting this year's U.S. Open, while Nye, the club pro at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia, is hosting the Curtis Cup, a signature women's amateur event between teams representing the United States and Great Britain and Ireland.