After finishing fifth in the Western Athletic Conference in April, the men’s golf team is ready to build on the finish going into its first tournament of the season, the JT Poston Invitational in North Carolina, starting on Sunday, hosted by Western Carolina University.
The Wildcats last competed in this tournament in 2023, finishing 12th out of 16 as a team. With two members of this year’s team competing in that tournament, there is some familiarity with the course. Preston Cooper, junior from Dallas, and Gregoire Hoyeau, senior from Paris, France, both tied for 64th two years ago.
The team is returning seven of its players from last season but lost a key contributor with Jaime Lewis graduating. However, Head Coach Tom Shaw said Lewis will still be with the team during the fall semester as a graduate assistant.
To help mitigate the loss of Lewis, the team has added three new players, two of whom are freshmen: Brady Mann from Bridgeport and Max Clarke from Auckland, New Zealand.
“I think they’ll perform well,” Shaw said. “Obviously, Max Clark comes from New Zealand. There’s an adjustment period that comes with that, but both will play a role for us.”
Along with those two, Shaw also added Tres Hill, graduate from Elk City, Oklahoma, to the team. Hill previously played at Oklahoma City University, where he received second-team All-American honors from the NAIA as a junior and first-team All-American honors from the NAIA PING as a senior.
Shaw hopes that Hill’s addition will help the team overcome the loss of Lewis this season.
With the seven returning players, Shaw said the team will have more experience, with six out of the 10 team members being upperclassmen.
“I’m excited, I think our guys coming back have played a lot of the same courses that we’ve played in tournaments,” Shaw said. “I don’t think we’re going to sneak up on anybody this year. I think we’ll be the favorite in a lot of the events that we play in, so that’s a new thing for our guys.”
After this weekend’s tournament, the team will compete in the Bayou City Collegiate Classic in Houston starting on Sept. 29. Then the team will head to Dallas on Oct. 5 to compete in a tournament Shaw says the team has targeted on the calendar, the Trinity Forest Invitational.
