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 28-30 at Westfield Country Club's North Course in Westfield Center, Ohio. Wooster is the host of this year's championships, which is a single-event, 54-hole format with 18 holes scheduled for each day.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Golfstat live scoring and check WoosterAthletics.com for end-of-day recaps. Wooster's championships hosting webpage can be viewed here.
Looking Back at 2022: Wooster placed seventh of nine teams at the 2022 NCAC Championships with a 54-hole score of 988. Alumnus Ben Foltz took low honors within the team on two of the three days of the championships. Foltz carded an 82 in his final collegiate round and he tied for 31st-place at 247. Current junior Tyler Hilbert (Plain City, Ohio/Jonathan Alder) matched Foltz with a 231 on the week. Current sophomore Noah Jackman (Worthington, Ohio/Thomas Worthington) (248, t-33rd), current junior Connor Mitchell (Dublin, Ohio/Coffman) (248, t-33rd), and current sophomore Krish Nayak (Bangalore, India/Mallya Aditi International School) (261, 38th) rounded out Wooster's lineup at the 2022 conference championships.
Scots Forecasted Fifth This Year: Wooster was voted fifth in the pre-championship coaches poll, where the Scots received 29 points. Wittenberg University was picked first with 63 points and received seven of the eight first-place votes. Defending champion Kenyon College was next with 53 points and one first-place vote, while Denison University (49 points) and DePauw University (37 points) rounded out the top-four.
Gatorade Champs: A monumental weekend was turned in by the Scots, which won the program's season-opening Gatorade Collegiate for the first time in the eight-year history of the event in September. Wooster shot a 294 and bettered that with a 293 to finish six stroke clear of runner-up Baldwin Wallace University. Nayak, playing as Wooster's No. 1, became just the second Scot since at least 1990 to finish a 36-hole tournament under par, thanks to a 4-under-par 68 in Sunday's round. Nayak posted an even-par 72 over the opening 18 holes of the year to earn medalist honors at 140. First-years Gabe Guthrie (Dublin, Ohio/Coffman) and Mark Towns (Columbus, Ohio/Worthington Kilbourne) secured top-10 finishes in their collegiate debuts. Guthrie tied for seventh-place at 149, while Towns settled for ninth-place at 150 after become just the second first-year during Rich Danch's 27-year run as head coach to debut with an under-par round.
Scots Win Again: Wooster convincingly won its second tournament of the year in mid-October, as the Scots' 615 was the top mark by 16 strokes at the six-team Bluffton University Beaver Fall Classic. Wooster's win marked the first time the Scots captured multiple traditional tournament titles in the same year since earning top billing four times during the 1997-98 season. Nayak's par on the first playoff hole gave him another medalist honor. The medalist honor was ignited by a 2-under-par 70 on Saturday, which featured four consecutive birdies, starting with hole 16. He rolled in six birdies overall during the Saturday round.
NCAC Athlete of the Week Times Four: Nayak has scored two NCAC Athlete of the Week honors this year, while in all, Wooster has claimed the award four times. Guthrie was selected following the Baldwin Wallace Fall Invitational after ranking as the highest NCAA Div. III finisher in the field. Guthrie shot even-par for the single-round event. He ranked third of 66 competitors and went 2-under-par on par five holes. Hilbert made quick work of Kalamazoo College's Luke Rop and claimed the fourth NCAC Athlete of the Week prize following Wooster's 5.5-0.5 win in a match-play event during the program's annual spring break trip. Hilbert wrapped up his 6-and-5 victory with a par on hole 13. He rolled in a birdie on hole six to get to 1-up, then grew the lead to 2-up on the par-4 seventh hole at Talamore Golf Resort. Hilbert won four holes in a row starting on hole nine to take a commanding six-hole lead.
Scots Rank Near the Top: Wooster has seven top-three finishes on the year, including two where the field consisted of at least 10 teams. Wooster was in the hunt at the 15-team NCAA Div. III Region V Preview, briefly overtaking Otterbein University before the Cardinals stormed back to take the title. However, Wooster did finish ahead of 13 other teams in the field, including both of the 2022 NCAA Div. III Championships qualifiers. Nayak placed third of 95 competitors with a 154.
Four-Ball Masters: John Angelo '13 and Marcus Carano '16 are once again in the field for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships, as they qualified for the third straight year at the October Northern Ohio Golf Association qualifier. Angelo and Carano bested Andrew Bailey and Kevin Carline on the seventh playoff hole to secure the second and final qualifying spot awarded to the field. In their first appearance at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships, the Fighting Scots' standouts were among the final 32 teams out of 128. They posted an 8-under-par 135 during the stroke-play portion of the 2021 event at Chambers Bay, site of the 2015 U.S. Open, then advanced to the match-play bracket in a playoff. This year's U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships take place May 20-24, 2023 at Kiawah Island Club in South Carolina. The Club hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup, the 2012 PGA Championship where Rory McIlroy won by a record eight strokes, and the 2021 PGA Championship, where Phil Mickelson became the oldest major champion at 50-years-old.
