Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
Middle Tennessee
Sun Belt Conference Championship
Men's golf looks to defend SBC Title
4/25/2010 9:15:00 AM | Men's Golf
MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. - For the Middle Tennessee men's golf team, currently ranked 39tht in the nation, the 2010 season comes down to the last scheduled match, the three-day, 54-hole Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
The SBC men's championship will consist of three rounds in three days at The Shoals' Fighting Joe Course, with a 7,171-yard, par-72 layout, with the winner earning an automatic berth into the field of the 2010 NCAA Championships, which will begin next month.
The Blue Raiders won their first SBC golf title last season and are looking to become the first SBC school to win back-to-back team titles since UALR did it in the 2000 and 2001 season. As a team the Blue Raiders lead the SBC in stroke average with a team average of 288.69 with nine top-ten finishes this season including three tournament wins.
Led by seniors Kent Bulle and Craig Smith, Middle Tennessee will be one of the favorites, but will get plenty of competition from Denver, North Texas, New Orleans, Arkansas-Little Rock, Arkansas State, and South Alabama.
"As a whole, this is the strongest the Sun Belt has ever been," said Coach Whit Turnbow. "In addition to our champion, we have three teams in contention for an at-large bid to the NCAA. We've never had that before. This will be a tough, tough tournament.
"We have prepared all spring for this tournament and for the NCAA's. The tournament at Crooked Stick earlier this week was on a very tough course that is very similar to the Fighting Joe course at Muscle Shoals," noted Turnbow. "We beat everybody there except Illinois, who is ranked 19th and had a great first round. We played them close the next two rounds, and had the lowest team score in the final round. We played well in the final round, holding off challenges from Purdue, Indiana and Xavier."
Junior Jason Millard paced the Blue Raiders for the second tournament in a row, shooting a 1-over par 214 to finish in 4th place. Millard won the Red Wolf Classic the week before with a 6-under par 282,
Despite a 77 in the first round at Crooked Stick, Bulle came back to shoot 217 and tie teammate Hunter Green for 6th place.
For the season, Bulle leads the team and ranks second in the SBC with a 71.9 stroke average, followed by Millard (72.1), Green (72.9), Simons (73.9) and Smith (74.0). All five have a season-low "best round" of 68 or lower.
Turnbow and his team will assure anyone interested that being the favorite is no guarantee of success. In fact, it puts a target on your back, especially when you are also the defending champions.
"When you go into this tournament as the favorite, it is hard to win," said Bulle. "Everybody that plays in this tournament, especially the seniors, are thinking it could be the last tournament of their career, so everybody plays a little bit better. In that respect, it's like the NCAA basketball tournament."
There is one strong indication that the Blue Raiders might do very well. In the nine tournaments this season (fall and spring), Middle Tennessee, as a team, has shot under par four times and over par five times. And it has been an every-other-tournament thing, over one week, under the next.
In the tournaments that the Blue Raiders have shot an over-par total, they have finished 6th, 3rd, 5th, 5th and 2nd. Not bad at all, but in the four tournaments they have come in under par, they have placed 1st, 1st, 2nd and 1st. At Crooked Stick, a very difficult course, Middle Tennessee was 22-over, but finished second.
For those who believe in progressions, it is time to shoot under par again. If that is true, the Sun Belt Tournament should belong to the Big Blue.
The team will hold a practice round on Sunday before beginning play on Monday morning. Fans can follow the live scoring by logging onto Golfstat.com.
