Rutgers Men head to the 54 Hole B1G Championship Friday to Sunday at the Scioto CC in Columbus. The course held a Ryder Cup, US Open, and PGA in it's original design. Unlike last year where a nor'easter played havoc with the championship at Galloway National outside AC, shortening it to 36 holes, there should be good weather over the weekend.
The Course -
Original course designed by Donald Ross opened in 1916. It was replaced in the 60's by a more "modern" course. A couple remodels later the club said enough, and in 2021 brought in Andrew Green who had successfully brought back Oak Hill to it's former glory and is doing the same at East Lake. The course is now close to Ross's original design.
The course will be played as a 7,240 yard Par 70.
The Field -
For the past 15 years the tourney honestly could have been known as "Illinois and those other teams". The Illini have won 13 of the last 14 (no 2020 - Covid) championships. Minnesota broke the string in 2014. Illinois is once again the highest ranked team in the field at #18, an off year for them. They are followed by #28 Purdue, #36 OSU, #44 Northwestern, and #46 Indiana. At #88, Rutgers is the 8th ranked team, sandwiched between #84 Michigan and #90 Wisconsin. A team to watch may be #73 Michigan State. In late February they finished 9th and last in the Fords Invitational (RU was 8th) with a ranking of #98. Since then they have finished 2nd twice, 3rd twice, and 5th working their way to where another good finish might give them a chance at an NCAA at-large bid. A lot depends not only the B1G but conf championships around the country. The Top 5 I mentioned above should make it no matter the finish this weekend.
The Top Players -
The highest ranked player is Purdue's Herman Wibe Shenke at #38. Following him are 2 Illini, #50 Jackson Buchanan and #52 Max Hendereen, and from OSU, a name we heard a lot about as the low Am and the Butler Cabin interviewee at this year's Masters, #55 Neal Shipley.In all there are 8 players in the Top 75 out of almost 1900 who are ranked in D1. There are also several hundred who either didn't play enough or didn't accumulate enough points to be ranked. did At #290 Xavier Marcoux is Rutgers highest ranked golfer followed by #329 Luke Wells and #386 Rhett Sellers.
A Little History -
Over the past 3 years Rutgers has finished 8th in '21, 11th in '22, and 10th last year. Rutgers best finish was 6th in 2019 when 2 players, Chris Gotterup (4th) and Saylor Dance (9th), finished Top 10. It was one of Gotterup's 2 Top 6 finishes in the championship. From that year, Gotterup and champion Andrian Dumont de Chassart (Illinois) are currently competing (and struggling) on the PGA Tour. Some reconizable names who won B1G titles are Steve Stricker (Ill) three times, John Cook (OSU) and Luke Donald (NW) twice, and with 1, Jack Nicklaus (OSU), Thomas Detry (Ill), Thomas Pieters (Ill), and Joey Sindelar (OSU). That Nicklaus guy went on to win 2 or 3 NCAA Championships. Don't know whatever happened to him after that.
The official scorer for the Championship currently lists 6 players for each team. I am not aware if the format has changed from 5 players, top 4 scores count to 6 and 4. The women have been 6 and 4 in their championships since at least 2021. Either way RU will go with Xavier Marcoux, Luke Wells, Rhett Sellers, Weston Jones, and Martin Leon. If there is a 6th player, it would be Cranford's Frosh and former NJ #1 ranked Junior Golfer, Derek Gutierrez. If as usual, they pair strictly by ranking, RU would be along side Michigan and Wisconsin. Of course, will also know 5 or 6 when pairings are posted.
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