Hello Trojans!

We are back in full swing as our spring season has began with a strong start in Palm Springs last week at The Prestige finishing 4th in the 24 team field! We had a very strong showing as you can see below beating TWO teams ranked inside the top-20 in the country (#6 North Carolina & #17 Pepperdine) and SIX teams in total that were ranked better than us at the beginning of the week! Freshman Freddie Turnell led our team with a 2nd place finish of his own with scores of 68-70-67 (-8) earning him OVC Golfer of the Week honors! Senior Archie Smith also had a strong performance with scores of 70-68-72 (-3) to finish T19th. Freddie and Archie each carded a bogey free round during the event of which only three occurred for the entire field of 120 players for three rounds.

As a team we had a very good week driving the golf ball which is one of the main keys to playing well in the desert combined with some very good iron play. Our counting four scores each round gained 1.22 strokes gained driving and 6.86 strokes gained approach which was a major reason we played well this week. We led the field in par 3 scoring at even par for the week and were third in par 4 scoring at 2-over par. We were also one of three teams in the field to shoot under par as a team each of the three rounds.

Freshman Ed Featherstone played as an individual this week in a separate event in Palm Springs and finished in 2nd place with scores of 70-69-77 (E)! This was a career low finish for the freshman and new career low round of 69.

Another big reason for our good play at The Prestige was a practice trip to Phoenix we took at the end of January that was made possible by Dr. Lowry Barnes. NCAA rules allow us to take practice trips as long as no class is missed and due to how bad the last few winters have been, I saw this as a big opportunity to head out west and get some much needed practice and play desert golf. I highlight the efforts Dr. Barnes made for our program to show the impact each of you have on our program and in this instance the ability to also see immediate performance results from our trip to Phoenix. Desert golf can be an intimidating style of golf when you see it for the first time and with three players in the lineup having never seen desert style golf this trip was critical for us to have success at The Prestige.

New rankings come out tomorrow on Scoreboard powered by Clippd as we will most certainly move lower!

The Prestige Recap

Date: February 17th - 19th

Course: PGA West Greg Norman Course

Host: UC Davis & Stanford

Field: #42 Little Rock, #6 North Carolina, #17 Pepperdine, #21 Texas Tech, #29 Northwestern, #32 Oregon, #34 Colorado, #36 Louisville, #41 Colorado State, #45 Stanford, #48 Kansas, #52 LMU, #58 Iowa State, #65 San Diego, #67 Kansas State, #72 Princeton, #74 Oregon State, #95 Baylor, Florida Atlantic, UNCW, Washington State, UC Davis, Nevada, Yale

Finish: 4th

Beat: #6 North Carolina, #17 Pepperdine, #32 Oregon, #34 Colorado, #36 Louisville, #41 Colorado State, #45 Stanford, #48 Kansas, #52 LMU, #58 Iowa State, #67 Kansas State, #72 Princeton, #74 Oregon State, #95 Baylor

Head-to-Head Wins: 20-3-0

2024-25 Cumulative Head-to-Head Record: 73-19-5

2024-25 Wins Against the Power 4: 24

2024-25 Wins Against the Top-30: 6 (Wins over #6 North Carolina, #14 UCLA, #15 South Carolina, #17 Pepperdine, #27 Duke, #28 Tennessee)

Louisiana Classics Preview

Date: March 10th - 11th, 2025

Course: Oakbourne Country Club - Lafayette, Louisiana

Field: #42 Little Rock, #8 LSU, #28 Texas A&M, #66 Sam Houston, #78 Rice, #81 Louisiana, South Alabama, Middle Tennessee, Texas State, Louisiana Tech, Oral Roberts, Illinois State

GO TROJANS!