Men’s Golf Ready for Schenkel Invitational
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky men’s golf team will return to the course beginning on Friday at the Schenkel Invitational. The three-day, 54-hole event is played at Forest Heights Country Club in Statesboro, Georgia, and it is the 22nd time the Wildcats will be a part of the field.
Kentucky’s starting lineup consists of Jacob Cook, Garrett Wood, Alex Goff, Campbell Kremer and Zach Norris. Hugo Archer will compete as an individual.
“The Schenkel is one of our favorite stops of the year,” UK head coach Brian Craig said. “The old school Forest Heights Country Club course and the southern hospitality at Georgia Southern are both exceptional. We are also ready to play. If we can just relax and play with freedom, I think it will be a good week for our boys. We are absolutely going to give it our best shot, you can be 100 percent sure of that.”
Admission is free, and spectators are welcome.
The first round of the tournament is scheduled for Friday with teams teeing off the first and 10th holes beginning at 9 a.m. The second round is slated for Saturday starting at 9 a.m., and the third and final round will begin at 8 a.m. Sunday.
NOTEWORTHY
The Field: The field consists of Army, Campbell, Cincinnati, College of Charleston, FGCU, Furman, Georgia Southern, Iowa, Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, No. 17 Notre Dame, UAB, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Wisconsin make up the 15-team field, the most in the tournament since 2015. Thirteen teams are ranked inside the top 100 of the latest Golfstat rankings.
Kentucky is making its 22nd overall appearance in the event, the most of any in the field with the exception of the host Georgia Southern Eagles. UK finished in sixth a season ago.
The Course: Forest Heights is recognized as one of the finest in the Southeast. The course measures out to 7,123 yards from the championship tees. Although the tee shots are relatively forgiving, the players face their biggest challenges when they reach the undulating greens. The greens feature subtle breaks that make it difficult to read and making scoring low a tough task.
The Lineup: Cook, Goff and Wood have started all five stroke-events this season. Kremer is set to make his fourth start of the season, while Norris is making his fourth of the season and first of the spring slate.
Total career sub-70 Rounds:
Goff – 12
Wood – 10
Cook – 7
Norris – 4
Kremer – 1
Experience: Four of UK’s five starters have experience at Forest Heights. Cook, Goff and Norris were all a part of the starting lineup a season ago. Kremer played in the event as an individual. Cook and Kremer took home the top honors with a tie for 29th on the individual leaderboard.
Leaderboard: Cook paces the squad with three top-10 finishes and four top-20 finishes on the season. He’s also the pace-setter with a 71.25 stroke average on the year. Wood has generated the most par-or-better rounds on the squad with 10 thus far in 2021-22.
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