Ohio returns to a golf course where it fell from second place to 10th on the final day of the Joe Feaganes Marshall Invitational last year.
Coach Bob Cooley returns his top four golfers from last year but only three will head to the Berry Hills Golf Club in Huntington, West Virginia on Monday. Grant Engel will miss the invitational due to undisclosed reasons, Cooley said.
The competition for the last spots in the lineup is so close that Cooley is holding a qualifying tournament to decide which three golfers will go join the returning starters in Huntington.
Cooley is taking six golfers with him although only five will score for the team, the sixth will go as an individual.
Last year the Bobcats were in second place after the first two rounds with back-to-back scores of 281 (-3) but fell to seventh on the final day with a score of 296 (+12).
“We hadn’t really been in that position as a team before, and I think we’ve grown up a bit since then,” Peyton White, senior and co-captain, said.
“Since I had been here we hadn’t shot a team round under par and we shot two team rounds under par,” White said.
White led the Bobcats with a seventh place finish with a score of 206 (-7) but was eight-under par after the first two rounds.
Since that tournament, White and co-captain Ty Herriot, who finished tied for 63rd, have won tournaments so they know what it feels like to be in the winner’s circle, Herriot, a senior, said.
Improvement is being expected for the Bobcats as it was the first tournament for sophomore Ben Sattler and he now has a full season under his belt.
