The ACU men’s golf team’s fall season is coming to a close as they head to College Grove, Tenn. on Sunday to compete in the Grove Intercollegiate tournament.
The largest storyline of the team’s few days in Tenn. will be how they finish the three-day tournament, as they have yet to finish in the Top 10 in any of their previous three tournaments this year, finishing tied for twelfth, tied for eleventh and twelfth respectively in two Colorado tournaments and one in Houston last week.
One factor that looks to help the Wildcats is the experience with the state that their head coach Tom Shaw has. Shaw was the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores from 2007 until 2012, before coming to coach the Wildcats, so look for his experience with The Volunteer State to turn in the Wildcats’ favor.
The largest factor of ACU’s team coming into this tournament will be junior Ryan Beatty. Beatty, a transfer to ACU this year, finished last week’s Bayou City Collegiate Classic in Houston at tied for ninth at 2-over-par 218, well ahead of the next Wildcat, junior Dillon Vaughn, who tied for 60th.
With Beatty coming off a hot finish last week, and ACU’s other top players, including Vaughn, senior Luke Carpenter and newcomer freshman Garrett Glanton, who have all had individual success this season, trying to bounce back from rough outings last week, ACU stands a fair chance to finish their fall season off with a better team finish than they have received so far this year.
