The improbable story of how Central Arkansas arrived at its first-ever NCAA men's golf regional
The most improbable team in this year's NCAA regionals?
Central Arkansas makes a compelling case.
The Bears will compete as the 13th seed starting Monday at Montreux Golf and Country Club in Reno, Nevada, after recently capturing the program's first Atlantic Sun Conference title. It's a remarkable feat considering this team, even with 13 players on the roster, had zero returning rounds from last season and then saw its coach, Jay Rees, unexpectedly retire after the fall semester.
Since Rees' retirement, Central Arkansas, which began the spring ranked outside the top 200 in Division I, has been led by 24-year-old Josh Turnock, a Bears alum turned graduate assistant who had just completed his M.B.A. program last December.
'It's a weird situation to be in,' Turnock said. 'I told the guys in our first team meeting of the spring that this isn't normal. Most of them are freshmen, so they only had Jay for one semester, and now they get a guy who is likely only going to be here for one semester. I told them to do the best they could with the situation that we were given and to just work hard. No one was expecting much from us, so we really did have nothing to lose…
'I still can't believe this happened.'
Turnock, a native of Manchester, England, played four years at Central Arkansas before graduating in 2022. He then applied for a 12-month work visa and spent a year working for a company that helps international athletes find college scholarships. He returned to school prior to last season to pursue his M.B.A., and he'd been applying for jobs when Rees announced his retirement because of family health reasons.
The logical replacement was Turnock, that is until he accepted a job offer to be a business intelligence analyst. But the offer was rescinded just a few hours later because of a mistake by the hiring department. After that happened, Central Arkansas' director of athletics, Matt Whiting, offered Turnock the interim head coaching position.
'I happy that he waited around and was still happy to offer me the coaching role,' said Turnock, who was assisted at a few events this spring by the school's head of IT.
Turnock's squad, which features players representing 10 different countries, soon turned shock into motivation, and upon starting the spring semester, proceeded to post top-5s in five of six tournaments after zero in the fall. Leading the charge were two low-level transfers, New Mexico Junior College's Kalle Svederman of Sweden and Austrian Noah Blaickner of Park University, an NAIA program in Gilbert, Arizona, who combined for seven top-10s, including two wins, one apiece. Blaickner, who only played once in the fall but markedly improved his short game during the winter months, added a runner-up at conference. The pair remain the only players on the roster ranked inside the top 500 nationally.
As a team, Central Arkansas was ranked No. 172 in the country, good enough for only the ninth seed, heading into the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship.
'We were just waiting for the week where all five guys played well at the same time,' Turnock said, 'and that's what happened.'
On the eve of the conference championship, held at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, Georgia, Turnock told his guys, 'No one's thinking about us, but after tomorrow they will.' The Bears responded by shooting 17 under in the first round and grabbing an eight-shot lead. They followed it up in 7 under and were four clear of the field through 36 holes.
'That last day was trying to hold on basically,' Turnock said. 'They were nervous, but none of them were scared, and they always believed they could win it.'
The Bears ending up holding off Stetson by a single shot to capture the program's first conference title of any kind since it won the 1972 AIC Championship and advance to their first-ever NCAA regional.
Central Arkansas has already posted the head-coaching position and is expected to name a full-time replacement by the end of May. Turnock, who has had more interviews for jobs in his degree field this spring, doesn't expect to be coaching after this season, though he said he's still not totally decided. With the transfer portal, the futures of the players are uncertain as well.
One thing is for sure, though.
'This is probably going to be the biggest tournament these guys have played in,' Turnock said of regionals.
Expectations will be even lower for the Bears.
But once again, they'll have everything to gain.
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