Cowboys golf team plans busy schedule

Published 6:58 pm Sunday, February 25, 2018

McNeese State’s Cowboys just may have the busiest golf schedule in the nation this spring. They tee off tomorrow in the Louisiana Classic in Lafayette, the second of eight tournaments they will play.

“We have 24 days of competition and I backloaded the spring. If you play golf every week something good has got to happen,” said coach Austin Burk, adding that he wanted the team — which will be after a third consecutive Southland Conference title this year — to be able to get into a rhythm by the league tournament.

The Cowboys didn’t put forth a very strong performance in their opener, placing 16th out of 18 teams in Houston’s All-American two weeks ago.

“It was a bad week, but that’s golf,” the coach noted. “We’ve made some changes in the lineup and have adjusted the way we practice.”

One tournament the Cowboys are looking forward to is the first edition of their own Lake Charles Invitational. That will run March 26-27 and will be played at the Country Club at the Golden Nugget with such teams as Houston, Louisiana-Lafayette, Marquette, Memphis and Lamar in the field.

It’s a return of men’s collegiate tournament golf to the area and Burk is already setting up for next year’s event.

He said he expects Texas Christian to join the field for the 2019 season, bringing along with it assistant coach Adrien Mork, who was a standout Cowboys golfer in the early 2000s, winning four consecutive team MVP honors and scoring titles.

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One of the highlights for this year’s Lake Charles Invitational is the appearance of PGA Tour winner Chris DiMarco as the guest speaker the night of March 24 at a McNeese fundraiser at the Lake Charles Country Club.

DiMarco’s golf talent will also be on display the following day in a round with three locals on the Golden Nugget course, one of the prizes to be auctioned off the night of the pro’s talk.

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McNeese’s Cowgirls golfers also didn’t get off to a fast start in their opener two weeks ago. They had a bye last week and return to action March 5-6 at the Texas-Rio Grande Valley event.

The Cowgirls were missing two of the top players on the team for their opener — Riley Isaac and Kennedy Bodfield (out with injuries) — and coach Mike Fluty decided to go with a young squad.

“I knew that we were probably going to struggle because of the weather (31 degrees at tournament time) and our lack of practice time (also because of weather),” he said.

“We hit a lot of fairways, but our approach shots and play around the greens was lacking. Our short-game skills are something that we have been working hard on.”

Fluty said he hopes that improvement of the team’s play would show in the next tournament and by the Houston Baptist event (March 19-20) he expected to have Isaac and Bodfield back in the lineup.

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Bryan Stewart produced the lone hole-in-one the past week as he aced the 166-yard No. 9 hole at Frasch Park in Sulphur with a 4-iron.

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Brayden Wright, a member of the Sulphur High golf team, tied for seventh place (out of 125 golfers) in a tournament hosted by Montgomery (Texas) High School last week.

Also, area junior golfers Jared Pousson (86) and Luke Highgtower (89) finished second and third, respectively, in the top boys division in last week’s Texas-Louisiana Junior Tour event played at the Henry Homberg Municipal Golf Course in Beaumont, Texas.

Upcoming

Saturday — LeRoy DeReese dogfight, Mallard Cove.

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Louis Bonnette has written about local golf for the American Press since 1971. His column appears each Sunday. Contact him at 274-5689 or lbonnette@mcneese.edu