COLUMBIA, Mo. – The No. 5-ranked Illini men’s golf team closed out Day 1 of the Tiger Collegiate Invitational at The Club at Old Hawthorne with a commanding performance that highlighted both the team’s ability to score low, and the rosters’ potential depth. The performance sets the Illini alone atop the team standings with a 15-stroke lead heading into Tuesday’s final round.
“Today was a good day, 46 under par is pretty strong,” head coach Mike Small said. “The course was there for the taking; the conditions were perfect, the course was in great shape, and I’m proud of the way that we commanded our space. Jackson (Buchanan) and Piercen (Hunt) played very well this afternoon, and Adrien (Dumont de Chassart) carried us with a low score in the morning. As a coach, you’d like to see depth become habit, and become the standard. I know it’s hard to shoot those scores all the time, but if we can command our space, and stay in the present tense like the way we did today, these days will happen more often.”
Buchanan, a sophomore from Dacula, Ga., sits alone atop the individual leaderboard in search of his first win in a 54-hole collegiate event. He opened with a solid 66 (-6) in Round 1 before carding a program-record 62 (-10) in the afternoon round to move to 16-under with a four stroke lead over Dumont de Chassart and the rest of the tournament field with 18 holes to play.
Buchanan’s 62 (-10) broke the program record of 63, a mark last attained by teammate Jerry Ji in 2019. The old mark was originally set by Chris DeForest in 2007, and matched by Brian Campbell (2014), Tomas Detry (2015), and Dylan Meyer (2017), before Ji tied it in the first round of collegiate career.
The record round by Buchanan, paired with Hunt’s career-low 64 (-8), also helped the Illini establish a new program record for lowest single-round team score with 261 (-27) in Round 2. Dumont de Chassart and fellow-fifth-year senior Tommy Kuhl rounded out the scoring for the Illini with scores of 67 (-5) and 68 (-4), respectively. The team performance eclipses the former record of 264 (-24) set during Round 3 of the 2016 Big Ten Championship at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Ind.
Overall, four other Illini sit inside the top 8, with three teammates within striking distance to challenge Buchanan for the individual title on Tuesday….
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