Illini Set to Open Spring Schedule
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The University of Illinois men’s golf program is set to return to action early next week, as the team prepares to open its 2023 spring schedule that features six regular-season tournaments leading into the 2023 Big Ten and NCAA regional and championship tournaments.
Mark ’em down.#Illini // #HTTO pic.twitter.com/vajhLjTCzq
— Illinois Men’s Golf (@IlliniMGolf) January 26, 2023
Head coach Mike Small’s team is once again coming off of a successful fall campaign with its sights set on maintaining the program’s championship standard. The team closed the fall at No. 7 in the Golfstat national rankings, and tallied top-5 finishes in all four events during the first half of the season schedule, including back-to-back wins at the inaugural Folds of Honor Collegiate and the Dayton Flyer Invitational.
Individually, the Illini lineup combined to post six top-five finishes, led by three from fifth-year senior Tommy Kuhl, and another pair from classmate Adrien Dumont de Chassart. The duo – who also appear together on both the 2023 Haskins Award and Hogan Award watch lists –closed the fall season rated 10th and 13th, respectively in the Golfstat individual rankings.
FEBRUARY
February marks the official return for the Illini, Feb. 13-14, at the Hal Williams Collegiate (formerly the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate), hosted by South Alabama at Magnolia Grove Country Club’s Crossings Course in Mobile, Ala. The Illini have competed in the event in each of the last three seasons, finishing as the runners-up in 2020 before winning the event in 2021 and finishing third in 2022.
Illinois closes February, for the second straight season, with a tough test at the Southern Highlands Collegiate, in Las Vegas, Nev. The event, hosted by UNLV, annually draws a strong field of championship-caliber programs to test themselves on a challenging desert track.
MARCH
As the calendar turns to March, the Illini look ahead to March 17-18 when the team is slated for a return to desert golf, taking on the field at the University of Arizona’s National Invitational Tournament, hosted at Omni Tucson National in Tucson, Ariz.
APRIL
April begins with the Illini returning to the epicenter of the golf world, Augusta, Ga., for the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational. The event…
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