NCAA Regional Means No Place Like Home for Men’s Golf Team

East Lansing, Mich. – There is no packing necessary, no plane to catch and no hotel to check in to for Michigan State’s men’s golf team this weekend.

There will be 12 other teams and 10 individuals traveling to Eagle Eye Golf Club in Bath, Mich. this weekend for an NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Regional, but the Spartans will be able to sleep in their own beds, hop in their own cars and drive 10 minutes from East Lansing down Abbott Road to the course.

“Just getting to the Regionals was the first step for us, but getting to basically have a home event for us when we don’t get that very often, it’s just great,” fifth year Troy Taylor said. “It’s getting the chance to sleep in your own bed and not travel, but we’ll also get to have some of our family and friends coming out to the course to cheer us on.  That means more than anything else.”

Michigan State was slated to host a Regional in 2020, but that event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Spartans, and the staff at Eagle Eye, have been waiting for this opportunity.

“This is certainly something that we all have looked forward to for a long time,” Head Coach Casey Lubahn said. “It’s great getting the award of hosting, but then we had the delay and this year, we’ve had the pressure of playing and doing well enough to get a bid, so it adds some pressure on to your team.

“Making the regional is a minimum standard of excellence here and I’m proud of the response of our guys to get to this point.  We’ve been able to get out to Eagle Eye every day this week and it’s great to get that opportunity.”

Eagle Eye Golf Club, a par-71, 7,156-yard course that was designed by Chris Lutzke in collaboration with Pete Dye, was designed as a rolling “links” style championship course featuring magnificent shot values on every hole. Eagle Eye provides a challenge from any of five sets of sees and is highlighted by its “Island Green” 17th hole.

Eagle Eye was named one of the top 100 public courses in the country in 2022 by Golfweek and was ranked No. 5 in the nation by Golf Advisor in 2017. The course hosted the 105th Michigan Amateur in 2016.

“One of the great things this week for us has been that we’re on our own time and we know the course,” senior Drew Hackett said. “We play Eagle Eye all the time, so knowing the course will help it feel a bit more normal for us.

“In the…