VIDEO: Randy Wylie Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After 103 days away from action on the links, No. 24 Carson-Newman heads to the Sunshine State this week to light the candle on the five-event spring slate at the Spring Kickoff Intercollegiate as the St. John's Golf Club in St. Augustine.
The Eagles look to build off of a fall campaign that came with two top-three finishes including a win at the North Georgia Fall Invitational and a third-place showing at the South Region Preview to close out the first half of the season.
"We're just looking forward to getting the season going," Carson-Newman coach Randy Wylie said. "Everybody's tired of playing each other and ready to get out there and see some other teams and, you know, try to get some wins."
C-N has gone to the Spring Kickoff Intercollegiate in each of the past seven seasons. In 2019, Wylie's unit collected a third-place finish at the event that was being played for the first time at St. John's, marking its best showing there since taking second in 2016. The Orange and Blue had the second-best outing of any team in last year's field during the final round at eight-over. Jake Headrick, Tom Forster (Oundle, England) and Jake Mynatt (Knoxville, Tenn.) all landed in the top 20, but it was Jackson Tyler (Wilmington, N.C.) who highlighted the final day of the tournament with an albatross on the par-5 eighth hole.
"It's a really good golf course that the guys really enjoyed and liked a lot," Wylie said. "The greens are really challenging. The field is super challenging. I think we're going to get some decent weather in Florida; that's the reason you make the trek this time of year."
Of the Eagles who made the trek last year, Forster, Mynatt and Fintan McKenna (Aberdeen, Scotland) all make returns this year at the first, second and fourth seeds, respectively.
Forster currently leads the Eagles with a 70.4 scoring clip through 12 rounds of play. Of the four events in the fall, he finished in the top three in a pair of tournaments, one being a tie for first at the North Georgia Fall Invitational. This will be the senior's fourth appearance in the event. He has never landed lower than 15th on the leaderboard, his lowest being 11th which he took both in 2017 and 2019. His best outing was in 2018, tying for fourth at the tournament.
Combined, Mynatt and McKenna are averaging an even 73.0 on the year through their four events. McKenna's best finish thus far came at the UNG Fall Invitational where he finished with a share of 10th. This will be his third appearance at the Intercollegiate, taking 53rd last season. As for Mynatt, he is still in search of a top 10 finish on the year. The closest the sophomore has come to the threshold was a tie for 18th at North Georgia. He took 18th in last season's Intercollegiate.
Joining the trio at St. John's this week are Fergus Robinson (Towcester, England) and Alex Hodge (Knoxville, Tenn.).
Robinson will hold down the No. 3 spot this week for the Eagles with a 74.5 scoring average through the first half of his debut season with the Orange and Blue. Hodge finished in the top 10 of all but one of the four fall events. His fall season was bookended up top-five finishes, tying for fourth in his debut event with C-N at the Cougar Invitational and a tie for fifth at the South Region Preview.
"We've got a real experienced, tough-minded team, I think," Wylie said. "I think that we can go down there and compete with all those teams pretty strongly, so we're looking for a really good finish."
This year's Spring Kickoff Intercollegiate is hosted by fellow South Atlantic Conference members No. 7/11 Lincoln Memorial and Wingate. The field is loaded with league teams including Tusculum, Anderson, Queens, Catawba and Coker. Regionally, seven Southwest teams will be in attendance, including Flagler, North Greenville, King and Southern Wesleyan, all of which were receiving votes in the last ranking of the year from the Golf Coaches Association of America. The top team in the nation, Barry, will also be among the teams at St. John's this week.
Carson-Newman will be working to boost its regional resume in the event after debuting at No. 5 in the Southeast in the first batch of NCAA Region Rankings that were released on Friday. It will be one of six teams who landed a spot on the lists, the others being LMU, Flagler, Queens and Southern Wesleyan from the Southeast and Barry from the South.
The SAC controlled the top three spots in the field of the 2019 Spring Kickoff Intercollegiate with Queens taking the title and LMU at second, just three shots ahead of Carson-Newman.
The two-day tournament kicks off Monday with two rounds of play. Scores and results will be coming in real-time throughout the event via BirdieFire. A recap and results of each day can be found at cneagles.com.
