JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The 17th-ranked Carson-Newman men's golf team will look to take back its South Atlantic Conference title it lost last season as the Eagles head to Etowah Valley Golf Club in Etowah Valley, N.C. for the 2016 edition of the conference tournament.
The Eagles entered last season's Men's Golf Championship as the reigning champions, but after the first round was rained out and C-N entered the final round in 12th-place before finishing in 10th. Tusculum won last year's event and enter Etowah Valley as the reigning champs.
Freshman Jake Headrick (Maryville, Tenn.), junior Dalton Reese (Warrenton, Ga.) and seniors Andrew Hall (Knoxville, Tenn.), Nicklaus Kennedy (London, Ontario, Canada) and Jace DeVault (Bluff City, Tenn.) will make up the Carson-Newman team for the tournament. Reese and Kennedy are the lone two holdovers from the 2014 SAC championship-winning squad.
"As a team, we need play smart. When we've struggled, it was when we made double and triples and had some bad holes. If we can play smart and avoid the bad holes that can kind of be round wreckers," Wylie said. "We should be very competitive and hopefully, we can win. If we get too aggressive or make some bad decisions and we make some doubles, that will certainly make it tough to win. As a team, we need to do a good job of that."
Hall and Reese were named first-team All-SAC on Wednesday, while Headrick took home Honorable Mention All-SAC honors to become the first C-N freshman to bestow a league honor since 2009.
Hall owns the second-best adjusted scoring average at 72.19 strokes per round, while Reese's scoring average ranks fourth in the league with an average of 73.45. Each of the first-team All-SAC selections have Individual Medalist accolades as Hall won the North Georgia Fall Invitational and Reese won the Tennessee River Ramble.
Headrick's low round of the year was a four-under 68 at the Saint Leo's Men's Invitational that he shot during the first round of play. The freshman ended the year with a 74.0 stroke average in 25 rounds of play, which was one of three Eagles to do so this season.
Kennedy's best finish of the season came in last event with a fifth-place showing at the Tennessee River Ramble. The Canadian owns a 74.4 stroke average in 22 rounds of play. DeVault is one of the three Carson-Newman players that have played in every event this year and has competed in 25 rounds. The Bluff City, Tenn. native owns a 74.5 stroke average and has finished in the top-10 twice this year.
Carson-Newman is the highest-ranked SAC team according to the Bushnell Golfweek Division II Coaches Poll, the Golfstat.com team ranking and the NCAA Division II Southeast regional rankings; C-N is the 13th-best team according to Golfstat, ranked 17th according to the coaches' poll and third in the regional rankings. Lincoln Memorial is second to the Eagles in all three rankings, while Newberry is the only other conference member that is ranked in the regional rankings.
The Eagles and Railsplitters are the only two SAC programs in the top-25 in either of the national polls. LMU is ranked 18th in the nation in the coaches' poll and 19th in Golfstat. According to Golfstat: Anderson (S.C.) ranks 138th, Brevard is 98th, Catawba places 165th, Coker stands in 102nd, Lenoir-Rhyne ranks 61st, Mars Hill is 93th, Newberry places 50th, Queens (N.C.) stands in 57th, reigning champs Tusculum is 62nd and Wingate ranks 77th.
Ranked among the world's Top 50 golf destinations by Golfer's Digest, Etowah Valley is an extraordinary setting for a timeless game. Wrapped in natural beauty, the course's spectacular 27-hole golf design offers unique terrain and an ideal climate with awe-inspiring mountain views. Etowah's lush fairways bend, fold and roll to perfectly manicured bent grass greens as large as 9,000 square feet. Three nine-hole courses and four tee positions allow for a variety of 18-hole combinations and offer a challenging, yet gratifying golfing experience which golfers can enjoy through all four seasons. The "South" course plays from 2,776 to 3,507 yards, while the "West" course plays from 2,704 to 3,601 yards, and the "North" course from 2,615 to 3,404 yards.
"The course is a fair course for everybody. It has a good mix," Wylie said. "It's good for our team. There are some reachable par fives and my team is pretty long and we can take advantage of some of the par fives. It's got some tight holes. It's got some flat greens and some really slopey greens. It's going to test all parts of your game and hopefully, we will be ready for that test."
The first round of the South Atlantic Conference Men's Golf Championships tees off at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning from Etowah Valley Country Club.
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