Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina men's golf opens the spring portion of its 2022-23 schedule Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 13-14 at the 2023 Border Olympics, hosted by the University of Houston at the par-72, 7,375-yard Laredo Country Club in Laredo, Texas. The Border Olympics represents the longest-running NCAA Division I collegiate golf tournament in the country, dating back to 1952.
The 54-hole tournament will be contested over two days with 36 holes of continuous play on Monday, Feb. 13 with a 9 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. CT shotgun start and concludes Tuesday, Feb. 14, with a 9 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. CT shotgun start. Live scoring of the tournament through GolfStat is available
online through a link at CatamountSports.com.
In addition to the host and event defending champion Cougars and the Catamounts, the 17-team field includes golfers from Baylor, Bowling Green, Coastal Carolina, Houston Christian, Illinois State, Lamar, Lipscomb, Louisiana Tech, Miami (Ohio), Michigan, New Mexico State, Rice, Sam Houston State, ULM, and Wright State. Twelve of this year's teams return from the 2022 tournament with nine teams in the tournament field ranking inside the Top 100 of the latest GolfStat rankings paced by Baylor at No. 30. WCU enters the spring semester ranked 109th overall.
"We're excited to get the spring going," said WCU head coach
Tim Eckberg. "The group played solid this fall and have nearly every school record that they are leading or in the mix for this spring."
Newcomers
Pablo Hernandez and
Adam Hooker paced the Catamounts through the fall semester, ranking 14th and 15th, respectively, in the SoCon in scoring average. Hernandez, a redshirt junior transfer from Missouri Valley College, led WCU with a 72.36 stroke average with one Top 10 finish while Hooker, a graduate transfer from High Point, tallied a team-best finish in a third-place tie at the 2022 JT Poston Invitational.
WCU's roster includes fifth-year senior
Louis Theys and seniors
Magnus Pedersen and
Quinton Metz, with sophomore
Kiefer Bulau and redshirt freshman
Josh Lendach. Theys averaged 73.21 over 14 rounds in the fall semester to lower his career average to 74.91 over 109 rounds. Pedersen shot 74.50 over five events and has a career average of 74.32. Lendach competed in four of the five team's events as an individual while Bulau and Metz competed twice and once, respectively.
The Catamount scoring five for the Border Olympics spring opener includes Theys at No. 1, followed by Pedersen at No. 2, Hooker and Hernandez in the third and fourth seeds, and Lendach making his first appearance in the scoring lineup for the Catamounts at No. 5.
The Border Olympics opens a six-event spring schedule for the Catamounts, culminating with the 2023 SoCon Men's Golf Championship, April 23-25, at the Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Ga. The slate will take the Catamounts across five different states. WCU heads to Florida for the Micky Mouse Intercollegiate hosted by Bellarmine, Feb. 19-21, at Disney's Palm Golf Course. WCU hosts its lone tournament in March – the Sea Palms Invitational at the Sea Palms Resort in St. Simons Island, Ga.
A busy April includes a trip to the Wofford Invitational (April 3-4) and competing in West Virginia's Mountaineer Invitational, April 17-18, in Bridgeport, W.Va., in the final tune-up before the conference championship.
Eckberg added, "The spring sends us all over the country, playing against some of the best to prep us for April and the SoCon Championship. I can't wait to see the continued growth in these guys and this team."
Keep track of everything related to Catamount men's golf and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com/catamountsports), Instagram (@wcu_catamounts), and Twitter (@catamounts, @CatamountMGolf).
