This year’s freshman class of golfers has been given extremely high expectations. After the losses of Gen Nagai and Chris Yeom, the new class of James Bosworth, Ian Lee, and Wenliang Xie have a tough four-year act to follow as it looks to make a splash in the collegiate golf world. Of the three newcomers, Xie is gotten off to the fastest start.
In a transition year for the Seton Hall men’s golf team, the young Pirates roster looks for someone to lead the 60% of upperclassmen that make up the roster. It is clear that Gregor Tait has become an apparent leader both in the locker room and on the course.
It was nearly exactly a year ago to the date that the Seton Hall men’s golf team registered a 4th place finish at the Alex Lagowitz Memorial Tournament in upstate Hamilton, New York. They were headed in their efforts by a freshman playing in his first ever collegiate tournament -- Devin Ramachandran, whose heady play landed him in a tie for fourth place on the leaderboards, the top number for any Pirate in the tournament.
While the 2018-19 PGA Tour season ended in late August, the 2019-20 Collegiate Golf season is just getting started.
The Seton Hall women’s golf season takes a hiatus from late April until late September, but rising senior and team leader Lizzie Win kept busy competing this summer. Win, who earned Big East All-Tournament and All-Conference honors for the second straight season in 2018-19, played in the LPGA Marathon Classic from July 11-14.
This past weekend was the culmination of it all for the Seton Hall women’s golf team and its 2018-19 campaign, a sweet chance for a year’s worth of work and season-long dreams to be realized with a hopeful Big East title. The Big East tournament, featuring the conference’s six women’s golf programs – Xavier, Georgetown, St. John’s, Butler, Creighton and Seton Hall, was the task on hand. The Pirates put forth a good effort in the tournament, but they finished in third overall.
It is easy to get lost in transition. Change is difficult and being able to cope with a new environment in a swift manner is an impressive accomplishment. However, progressing into that new period, and continually breaking down the boundaries is what separates the good from the great – and Mia Kness is great.
Just over one round of golf was played at the women’s River Landing classic earlier this week, as the final two rounds of the event were cut short due to incoming darkness rendering the course unplayable on Monday.
Seton Hall had plenty to deal with weather-wise last week, as imminent snowfall, heavy wind and sleet hit the South Orange area. The men’s golf team did not see one inch, however, as it was able to avoid the slew of inclement weather this past weekend when competing in the Loyola Invitational in Goodyear, Ariz. last weekend.
The Seton Hall women’s golf team opened its spring season finishing in second at the 2019 Rio Verde Invitational on Feb. 24. They competed among a field of 18 teams that also featured Big East rivals Xavier.
After a lengthy break, Seton Hall’s Women’s Golf team are hard at work preparing for the second half of their season. In the build up to the Big East Championship, Coach Natalie Desjardins and her team will compete in six tournaments across the east coast and midwest.
During the frigid temperatures of December and early January, the Seton Hall men’s golf team was faced with the difficult task of finding where to play 18 holes under comfortable conditions.
Gen Nagai had himself quite the homecoming during the first weekend of January, as the Philippines native came away with the victory in the Philippine Amateur Open Golf Championship.
Solutions by The State News
