With the season on the horizon, Ohio looks to their commanding schedule ahead, as three tournaments are arranged for September, compared to one in the same month last year.
Coach Bob Cooley sees the early tournaments as advantageous to the team, enabling the Bobcats to build upon their play from the previous week.
“You get the rhythm and some confidence going, and then you play well one week, it helps carry over into the next week,” said Cooley.
Perhaps regular competitive play, especially early in the fall season, could turn things around for team that performed less than stellar last year. The Bobcats placed no higher than fifth in tournament play.
To accompany the September schedule, the Bobcats look to new additions to their roster.
“We’ve got Phil Gieseker, who came here as a freshman, transferred, then transferred back (to Ohio),” said Cooley. “He sat out last year, but he is a good player.”
Along with Gieseker, Jake Williams, Peyton White and Ty Herriot are all freshmen additions.
A walk-on qualifier will be held this weekend to fill a final roster spot — a rare occurrence on a team dominated with golfers on scholarship.
“Our athletic department likes to see a walk-on qualifier if we have an opening,” said Cooley. “They told me I could have 12 players this year, and I have 11 (players) right now.”
Qualifiers aside, Ohio will begin its competitive season on Sept. 9 at the Marshall Invitational, an event the team is competing in for the fourth consecutive year. The Bobcats have never finished better than15th in the event.
Cooley sees this inaugural fall event as a key tournament on the calendar.
“It’s a good tournament and we’ve played in it every year they’ve had it,” Cooley said. “It’s really just competition because it is not a hard golf course, just a good course to start out on.”
The event will be played Sept. 9-10 at Guyan Country Club.
The Bobcats will be inactive the following weekend, before competing in the Wolf Run Intercollegiate on Sept. 21, a tournament Ohio has never played in.
“(Indiana University) runs the tournament, and they had an opening (for a team),” said Cooley. “This is the first time we’ve been invited to the Wolf Run Intercollegiate.”
The Bobcat Open will be played at the end of September in an exhibition event at The Lakes in Worthington, a course that co-hosts a sectional qualifier for the U.S. Open on an annual basis.
Ohio will then head north to Akron to play in the Firestone Invitational during the first week of October, before wrapping up the fall season at Miromar Lakes Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla at the end of the month.
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