Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina redshirt junior
Tyler Jones today collected his third Southern Conference Men's Golfer of the Week honor following his runner-up finish at the Wexford Intercollegiate, guiding the Catamounts to a third-place team finish. Jones posted his fourth podium finish of the season, finishing a stroke off the top spot in Tuesday's final round.
With today's selection, Jones has the most weekly awards by an individual men's golfer in the SoCon this season, breaking the tie with Furman's Harris Barth, a two-time honoree. The Catamounts have collected four weekly awards this season, with Jones honored three times and
Andrew Korytoski recognized back on Oct. 1.
Jones is just the second Catamount, dating back to 2001 when the league started handing out awards, with three-or-more weekly honors from The Southern Conference. He only trails JT Poston, who earned four weekly plaudits in his Catamount career, including three in 2015. The SoCon began awarding weekly honors in both the fall and spring in 2019-20. Jones is one of 15 men's golfers since 2001 to be recognized three times.
Jones is also the first Catamount to collect multiple weekly plaudits from the league office in the same season since Pierre Viallaneix earned two back in the COVID-19-shortened 2019-2020 campaign. Jones is on a WCU list that includes five others – Viallaneix, Poston, Magnus Pedersen, Matt Cook, and Tripp Morrow – to have earned multiple weekly awards in their WCU career.
Originally from Jacksonville, N.C., Jones guided WCU to its fifth Top Five – and third podium – team finish at the 20th annual Wexford Intercollegiate at the par-72, 6,884-yard Wexford Golf Club in Hilton Head Island, S.C., with a runner-up showing individually. For the second-straight event, Jones made a run at the top of the leader board in the final round, closing to within a stroke in finishing second.
Jones carded rounds of 2-under par 70 and 5-under par 67 on Monday, before coming home with a 1-under par 71 in Tuesday's final 18 holes to shoot 8-under par 208. He finished tied for fourth in the field with 39 total pars, closing the event with 11-straight pars on Tuesday. Jones additionally led WCU with 10 birdies and was one of just nine golfers to card an eagle on the Arnold Palmer Signature course.
With his runner-up finish, Jones has four podium finishes this year -- two victories, a second-place, and a third-place back in the Golfweek Fall Challenge.
Through 18 seasonal rounds to date, Jones currently leads the Southern Conference in scoring average at 69.78, among schools that have reported scores in the spring semester. He is currently the only men's golfer in the league with a sub-70 stroke average. Jones has eight rounds carded in the 60s this year.
Western Carolina returns to action on March 12-14, hosting its second tournament of the season, The Peoples Golf Championship at Sea Palms, in St. Simons Island, S.C. It's the fifth-straight season that WCU has hosted at Sea Palms since the COVID-19 altered 2020-21 season. The event is again title-sponsored by Peoples Golf and The Peoples Clubs, based in Swain County, NC, and founded by Will Peoples, CEO and a 2008 WCU graduate.
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).
