Men's Golf Travels to Toledo for Inverness Intercollegiate
9/19/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State men's golf team continues its fall season with the Inverness Intercollegiate (Monday-Tuesday, Sept. 22-23) at the par 71, 7,300-yard Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. The 11-team tournament, hosted by the University of Toledo, features UAB, Austin Peay, East Tennessee State, Kent State, Liberty, Memphis, Mercer, MSU, UNC-Charlotte, South Florida and Toledo.
Michigan State's starting lineup for the 10th annual Inverness Intercollegiate will be Gareth Lappin, Mitch Rutledge, Charlie Netzel, Sam Weatherhead and Gates Muller. Lappin, Rutledge, Netzel and Weatherhead all competed in MSU's first tournament of the season, an eighth-place showing at the Gopher Invitational, while Muller earned a starting spot through qualifying rounds.
The 54-hole event will begin with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. with 36 holes on Monday and a tee time start of 8 a.m. with 18 holes on Tuesday.
The Inverness Club was founded in 1903, and along with the University of Toledo, served as host for the 2009 NCAA Men's Golf Championships. Inverness has also hosted four U.S. Opens, two U.S. Senior Opens, two PGA Championships and one U.S. Amateur.
"I think our guys will relish the opportunity to play at Inverness, because it's just a test, from the first shot to the last," said MSU head coach Casey Lubahn. "I think it feels a lot like home. It's only two hours away, and these are the type of venues that we've had success on the past couple of years."
Lappin paced MSU with a 12th-place finish at the Gopher Invitational after carding a 7-over-par 220 (72-77-71). It marked Lappin's third career top-20 finish in just five stroke-play tournaments.
"I think now that Gareth is comfortable here, he got here in January, he's going to continue to get stronger, week in and week out," remarked Lubahn of the sophomore from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Overall, Lubahn is looking for his team to show improved play on the greens at Invernesss.
"We're looking for continued growth as a team," said Lubahn. "The ball-striking numbers at Minnesota were fantastic, as good as we've had here in years, but the short game, especially the putting numbers, were really weak. So we went back and put some serious work into the short game, which we always do, but we did even more of an emphasis on it because they saw the importance of it, and these last four rounds of qualifying were considerably better. If we putt the ball well, and continue to hit it like we've been hitting it, we're going to be competitive."
Players Mentioned
