Troy men win Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday Intercollegiate

For a new coach looking to put his stamp on a program, competition schedule is as good a place to start as any. When Forrest Schultz arrived as the head men’s golf coach at Troy last year, he worked the phones to make schedule a selling point. The goal is always to get into the strongest fields.

On Wednesday, Schultz’s players gave him one back.

Troy might be the first college golf team to secure its spot in a major college golf tournament by winning a different one. For winning the Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday Intercollegiate at True Blue Golf Club in Pawley’s Island, the Trojans locked in a spot in next year’s Augusta/Haskins Award Invitational. It’s perennially one of the best fields in men’s college golf, with Pepperdine, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Illinois among the teams already committed for 2024.

It’s also played right before Masters week, and each team in the field traditionally receives tickets for Monday’s practice round at Augusta National.

“Strength of schedule is huge, that’s a premier event every year,” said Schultz, who came to Troy after eight seasons coaching the men’s and women’s golf teams at Henderson State, an NCAA Division II school in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. “To have the Masters practice-round tickets afterwards, that obviously is going to be a very special week for our team and something that these guys are going to look on way beyond college and remember fondly.”

Fifth-year senior Will McFadden joked with Schultz that this week was for the recruits. He’ll be long gone by the time Troy rolls into Augusta next spring, but McFadden’s second-round 69 helped Troy set a school record for 18 holes and pull away from the field.

Sophomore Jake Springer went 3 under through the first five holes of the final round and from there, Troy was all but untouchable.

“We wanted to figure out how many holes we could attack because the fairways are really wide there,” Schultz said of the gameplan for True Blue. “We wanted to make sure that we were going to take the most efficient line we could off the tee box to give us the best opportunity to get wedges in our hand.”

Troy was 24 under over three rounds at True Blue, and played the final round in 11 under, which was the lowest round of the day by eight shots. Ranked No. 99 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings and the only top-100 team in the field, the Trojans finished the week with a 22-shot edge on Delaware and Connecticut, tied for second.

Springer…