For once, fans won’t have to travel far in order to see a State golf team in action. They need only head over to Centennial Campus Friday and Saturday for the all day Wolfpack Invitational, the first tournament the men’s team has hosted at Lonnie Poole Golf Course. The layout for the course, which spans approximately 200 acres, was the brainchild of PGA tour legend Arnold Palmer and his design team.
After years of waiting, Pack will finally get its turn to show off its home course. According to sophomore Mark McMillen, there will clearly be an advantage for the Pack due to familiarity and the fact that many opponents haven’t previewed the course.
“We play the golf course probably four or five times a week. We really didn’t have a home field advantage [last year] because we didn’t play a course that much,” McMillen said. “I think we’re going to have a good home court advantage this weekend.”
Nine of the eleven ACC teams will be in attendance, including No. 12 Florida State, No. 13 Georgia Tech and No. 15 Virginia.
According to freshman Mitch Sutton, the team hopes playing on Centennial Campus will give them the advantage.
“I think having this golf course here will help,” Sutton said. “Hopefully we can do well.”
Every inaugural collegiate golf tournament does have its down sides. It’s still a new course and conditions aren’t quite ideal yet, coach Richard Sykes said told GoPack.com.
“We know this first year that everything won’t be grown in and it won’t be completely perfect,” Sykes said. “But I would like for [the other teams] to leave here saying that we put on a nice event, that they enjoyed it and that they can see it will be a really nice course.”
Sykes and his team hope their home tournament will give the team the boost it needs to finish strong. The Pack’s best finish of the year came at the Mardi Gras Intercollegiate Tournament Feb.22-23, where it finished second of a field of 15. However, the team hasn’t placed higher than sixth since then. In its latest tournament, Hootie at Bulls Bay in Awendaw, S.C., March 28-30, the Pack finished tied for eighth out of 15 teams.
McMillen said consistency has been an issue for the men’s team as a whole this season, but the players have the potential to correct the problem.
“We’ve had a pretty good season. We haven’t just been able to put three good rounds together,” McMillen said. “When that happens, it’s going to be scary.”
To win this tournament, the Pack will rely heavily on the play of defending NCAA individual champion Matt Hill, a junior. He is currently leading the team with an average of 72.8 strokes per 18 holes for the spring. As an individual, he finished first overall at the Hootie at Bulls Bay, shooting nine under par. Hill also won the ACC Golfer of the Month award for the month of March.
“He’s had a great year,” McMillen said. “He had a lot of expectations coming into the year and got a win last week at the Hootie. It seems like he’s got a lot of confidence going into the rest of the year.”