VIDEO: Randy Wylie Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The fall portion of the 2018-19 Carson-Newman men's golf schedule will feature four events that will take the reigning South Atlantic Conference champions outside of the Volunteer State, as released by head coach Randy Wylie on Thursday.

Wylie's 15-man group this season brings back 11 players from a team that was ranked as high as 15^th in the nation by Golfstat and fourth in the Southeast region. Highlighting the group of returners is the top tandem of junior Tom Forster (Oundle, England) and senior Jake Headrick (Maryville, Tenn.).  The pair landed on the SAC's All-Conference first and second teams, respectively, at the conclusion of the 2017-18 campaign with a combined 15 top 20 finishes, ten in the top 10 and three tournament victories, one of those being Forster's SAC Tournament win.

Joining Forster and Headrick as key returners are Jackson Tyler (Wilmington, N.C.), Alex Hutson (Newport, Tenn.) and Anthony Marcinelli (Knoxville, Tenn.) as the rest of the group that represented C-N at the 2018 NCAA Division II Men's South/Southeast Regional, where the Eagles tied for ninth-place.

"With four talented incoming freshmen, it will be great of them to learn from guys with the leadership skills and experience that our team has from coming off of back-to-back conference championships and three NCAA bids," Wylie stated. "So, we should be good on the leadership, the experience side and that will really help our young guys as they come along."

The Eagles face a busy September with three-straight weeks of competition before a week-long interruption will poise them for their final event of the fall.

Wylie's team opens the season with back-to-back events in South Carolina, the first of which being the Coker Fall Challenge at the Camden Country Club on September 10 and 11. This event will serve as a preview of the SAC Tournament later in the spring.

"It's going to be important that we play well because we've got so much good competition right off the bat," Wylie mentioned. "That's where our experience will hopefully really come through."

Following that first event, the Eagles will make their return to the Kiawah Island Invitational. This will be the team's first showing in the event since 2015 after last year's tournament was canceled due to weather.

The fall schedule powers on into the final week of September with the Orange and Blue heading back to the Cougar Invitational after a sixth-place finish there last season.

"If I've coached there and we have multiple guys who have played there, that usually works out pretty well," Wylie said. "That's enough experience and knowledge we can share on the golf course with the new guys or whoever were to get in the starting lineup."

Autumn comes to a close nearly two weeks later in West Palm Beach, Florida's PGA National Champion Golf Club for the Shark Invitational. This will be Carson-Newman's first trip to the event hosted by Nova Southeastern, a team who was in the top of the national rankings for most of last season.

"I expect them to compete and go down there and try to win that tournament against a bunch of top 10 teams on what, for most players, will be the hardest golf course they'll have played," Wylie said. "That's really the challenge to me there. Our guys know about playing the competition but several of them have not played a golf course of the difficulty of PGA National."

Full recaps and results will follow each of the events the Eagles will take part in this season. That and more will be found on cneagles.com through the duration of the season.