Men's Golf Team Hopes for Fast Start
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Albion College men’s golf team is hoping that hosting the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association’s first jamboree will provide the momentum for a successful fall season. Albion and its league rivals will gather at The Medalist Golf Club in Marshall Sept. 8 for the first of eight rounds to determine the champion and the three other teams that will vie for the MIAA’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championships in the spring.
According to Jordan Rich, ’03, who is gearing up for his sixth season as coach, the Britons have set the goal of finishing two places higher in the standings to have the opportunity to play for a position in the NCAA tournament. Moving up the MIAA ladder is a realistic goal considering the Britons’ 309-stroke average last season was just five strokes off the pace of the fourth place squad. Just one stroke per player is the difference in each round, meaning Rich will continue to preach the importance of every shot.
“It’s critical to get off to a good start,” Rich said. “The guys need to know we’re within striking distance to keep that interest and to keep grinding it out in practice each day.
“To be competitive in the MIAA it’s going to take four rounds of 77 or better each time,” Rich added. “It’s going to take a concerted effort on the part of everybody to value every shot. We finished sixth in the league standings last season, but we were only 61 shots behind first place compared to being 75 strokes ahead of seventh place.”
Albion’s top returning player is senior Scott Merritt (Bloomfield Hills/Lahser), who posted a 77.6-stroke average in MIAA play last fall. He was two strokes off the pace of the medalist when he shot a 73 to tie for fourth among the individuals in the jamboree at the Watermark Golf Club in Grand Rapids. Merritt, an economics & management major with a concentration in the Carl A. Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management, leads the Britons academically after earning a place on the Cleveland Golf All-America Scholar list developed by the Golf Coaches Association of America last year.
“Scott has played in every tournament since his first days on campus so he has a pretty good idea of what it takes to be successful in the MIAA,” Rich said.
Sophomore Taylor DesEnfants (Grayling/Grayling) placed his name on the leaderboard last season with a round of 71 as Albion posted a 296 score in the jamboree at the Zollner Golf Course in Angola, Ind. Other veterans joining DesEnfants on the roster include juniors Ken Gibbons (Toledo, Ohio/E.L. Bowsher), Brent Koaches (Midland/Dow), and Taylor Margolis (Ann Arbor/Community) and sophomore Dana Brooks (Wooster, Ohio/Triway).
Rich expects three newcomers – Jacob Bloom (Tecumseh/Tecumseh), Logan Hull (Swartz Creek/Swartz Creek), and Matt Fellows (West Bloomfield/Andover) – to compete for places in the lineup when they arrive on campus.
“Matt Fellows was a first team all-Oakland Activities Association Blue selection, Logan Hull is a strong and powerful player and Jacob Bloom won his high school regional in 2010 at Calderone Farms with an even par round of 72,” Rich said.
Albion will start the season Sept. 2-3 with non-league rounds in the Lou Collins Memorial Tournament at the Bedford Valley Golf Club in Battle Creek.
