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 May 3-5 at Westfield Country Club's North Course in Westfield Center, Ohio. Hiram College is hosting this year's championships, which is a single-event, 54-hole format with 18 holes scheduled for each day.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Leaderboard King for live scoring and check WoosterAthletics.com for end-of-day recaps.
Looking Back at 2023: Then-junior Jacob Ullom (Indianapolis, Ind./North Central) became the program's first first-team All-NCAC performer since 2014 with a fifth-place score of 222 at the 2023 NCAC Championships. Wooster placed sixth with a 909 for the 54-hole event. Wooster opened the NCAC Championships with a 303, which marked the team's lowest round since the year-opening Gatorade Collegiate. Wooster posted a 298 in round two, which marked the third-lowest team round of the year. All five Scots shot in the 70s in the 298 round, which was led by Ullom's and then-sophomore Krish Nayak's (Bangalore, India/Mallya Aditi International School) 73s.
Starting the Year Off Right: Wooster won its season-opening Gatorade Collegiate for the second straight year with a 586 at the par-72, 6,733-yard Zoar Village Golf Course. First-year Jake Cammarata's (Long Beach, Calif./Millikan) 77 beat out John Carroll University's Wade Boyle's 78 for the tiebreaker score, as both Wooster and John Carroll finished the tournament at 586. Sophomore Gabe Guthrie (Dublin, Ohio/Coffman) started the year with a collegiate-best 1-under-par 71. Guthrie birdied the par-5, 511-yard second hole at Zoar and was 3-under-par at the lid-lifter's turn after rolling in consecutive birdies at the par-5, 546-yard seventh hole and the par-4, 366-yard eighth hole. Guthrie followed up his opening round by going out at 2-under-par in the final round before finishing the tournament with a 1-under-par 143. Of note, Guthrie is just the third Scot since at least 1990 to finish a 36-hole tournament under par.
Speaking of Under Par: Alumnus Marcus Carano's 1-under-par 143 at the 2015 Nye Intercollegiate/NCAC Preview at Wooster Country Club marked the program's first 36-hole under-par score since at least 1990. Nayak has Wooster's other one, with that coming at the 2022 Gatorade Collegiate. Nayak followed up an opening-round 72 with a 4-under-par 68. In that round, Nayak stepped up to hole 17 at 2-under-par, then proceeded to sink birdies on the final two holes to get to 4-under.
Scots Were Defending National Champion Last Time This Happened: Wooster followed up its season-opening Gatorade Collegiate title with a win at the Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic on September 19. Wooster started round two of that tournament two strokes behind NCAC rival Ohio Wesleyan University before turning the midpoint deficit into a resounding 16-stroke victory. The win marked the program's first time winning multiple tournaments in consecutive seasons since 1974-75 and 1975-76. Wooster was the NCAA Div. III national champion in 1975.
Wooster Storms Back, Runs Down John Carroll: Wooster roared back with a 13-stroke improvement from round one to round two at the University of Mount Union Fall Invitational, which flipped a 10-stroke deficit into a four-stroke victory at Tannenhauf Golf Club. The win was Wooster's third straight to start the year and the three tournament wins are the most since the 1997-98 team logged four. Wooster's 294 at Tannenhauf tied for the team's second-lowest round of the season and was the third time the Scots have been below 295 as a unit. All four scorers checked in at 74 or better in the final round.
Nayak a Five-Time NCAC Athlete of the Week: Nayak earned a fifth NCAC Athlete of the Week honor on Tuesday following his team-leading performance at last week's NCAA Div. III Region V Preview. Nayak fired a 151 on the University of Notre Dame's Warren Golf Course to place sixth in the 95-competitor field. Two of Nayak's NCAC Athlete of the Week honors came this fall.
Hilbert Leading Scots This Spring: Senior Tyler Hilbert (Plain City, Ohio/Jonathan Alder) has been Wooster's top finisher this spring. The senior opened the season with a 13th-place 149 at the Polar Beaver Classic. Hilbert's second-round score was a 2-over-par 73 at Hidden Creek Golf Club and was tied for the team's low round of the tournament. He followed that up with a fourth-place finish at the Nye Intercollegiate, which marked the senior's home finale. Hilbert signed for rounds of 76 and 79 and was 3-under-par for the tournament on the par-5 holes.
Consistency at the Top: Wooster's top three players boast near-identical scoring averages on the year, with Guthrie and Nayak both checking in at 76.6 and Hilbert right behind at 76.7. All three have played in at least 14 of Wooster's 17 competitive rounds.
Top-Five Finishes All Around: Six Scots have top-five finishes on the season. Hilbert leads the team with three, while Guthrie has two, both of which were medalist honors. Other top-five showings are from Cammarata (Mount Union Fall Invitational, third, 77-71-148), first-year Andrew Carey (Rockford, Ill./Guilford) (Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic, fourth, 81-75-156), Nayak (Mount Union Fall Invitational, second, 73-74-147), and Ullom (Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic, second, 77-75-152).