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USA Today
08-08-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Jack Crousore parlays lessons in course management into Hoosier Am win
Jack Crousore had high expectations for his freshman season at the University of Minnesota when he arrived on campus a year ago. The adjustment, however, was tough. A year later, Crousore can point to monumental growth in one area in particular: course management. And there may be no better validation of that growth than his Aug. 7 victory at the Hoosier Amateur, played at the Pfau Course in Bloomington, Indiana. Crousore, who hails from Bluffton, South Carolina, has family ties to the Midwest and to Indiana University, where his older sister Annie attended school. The 20-year-old, who carried his own bag around IU's course this week, put his biggest focus on hitting fairways. That led the way to rounds of 69-68-69 that ultimately left him at 7 under and three shots better than runner-up Carson Baez of Davenport, Florida. Liam Nelson, of Chicago, had a share of the lead with nine holes to play but withdrew because of illness. Baez, who plays for Richmond, has found himself in contention quite a bit lately. He lost a playoff for the individual title at the National Golf Invitational in May and also lost a playoff for the Southeastern Amateur title in June. Crousore, however, just could not be overtaken this week, particularly after opening his final round with four consecutive birdies. 'A couple of really bad swings' off the tee led to a triple-bogey on the par-4 eighth and the leaderboard remained tight until No. 13. 'I had this short-sided bunker shot, back left bunker, and I ended up making it for eagle,' Crousore said of that hole. 'When I made that, I kind of was like OK, there we go.' Crousore, 20, struggled to break into the Gopher lineup consistently last fall. But by March, when the team competed at the Colleton River Collegiate at Crousore's home course, Colleton River Golf Club, the freshman led the team in scoring. He was the Gopher's leading scorer four more times in the spring, culminating with a team-best T-7 finish at the Big Ten Conference Championship. 'My coaches and teammates helped me through that rough patch and once we hit spring I started getting back into form,' he said. 'Them having faith in me when I was struggling gave me a lot of confidence and really helped me get through that rough patch.' Crousore, like any seasoned player, has certainly hit dips in his game before. He experienced one after his last major victory, at the Beth Daniel Junior Azalea in August of 2023. He took some time off after that and didn't feel like he hit peak form again until the following January. Interestingly, Crousore also didn't feel like he had his best stuff in the weeks leading up to the Hoosier Amateur. Namely, he was struggling off the tee. 'I was working with my coach a little bit this past week and we kind of found something and it was really nice to see that click and carry on through this week,' Crousore said of his work with instructor Jason Sutton at Colleton River. 'I think those small little swing thoughts that we picked out are going to be really helpful going into the start of the fall season.' That fix, together with knowledge about his game that Minnesota head coach Justin Smith helped bring to light, proved to be a huge difference maker at the Hoosier Am. Crousore had a lot of conversations about his game with his college coaches over the past year. They gathered data and helped create a strong game plan for how he should attack golf courses. At the Pfau Course, his focus was to keep it where he could see it, particularly off the tee where fescue frequently comes into play. The biggest part of Crousore's game plan since March, regardless of the course, is to get the ball on the green as quickly as possible – a concept that sounds simple enough but is still a good reminder for Crousore not to be tempted by tucked pins, especially when there's trouble nearby. 'My strength is my putting and we really highlighted that in our meetings, and I think ever since having that conversation of them just saying, 'Hey, rely on your strengths instead of trying to play to something you're not as good at,' really helped me take a step back and realize I don't have to do everything great, I can lean on this one part of my game that's really strong,' Crousore said. 'I think that, since March, has really helped me get my way around the course a lot better.'
USA Today
19-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Ohio State scores redemption win at NGI; Utah State's Enrique Karg earns indy title in playoff
Ohio State scores redemption win at NGI; Utah State's Enrique Karg earns indy title in playoff Had Ohio State's season ended last month, it would have been on a sour note indeed. The Buckeyes, in a rebuilding year, finished fifth at the Big 10 Championship and missed an NCAA Championship bid. But three weeks after their year could have been over, head coach Jay Moseley and his team are carting a postseason trophy back across the country to the heartland, and that's something Moseley has never done. On Sunday, Ohio State finished off a seven-shot victory in the third National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. Ohio State made an NCAA semifinal run a year ago this time, but that was with four distinguished seniors on the roster. After failing to score an NCAA regional bid earlier this month, Moseley's team committed to some areas of improvement and bought into a different side of the postseason: the NGI. This win amounts to a huge shift in momentum, especially considering that Ohio State's only two team wins this season, as Moseley noted, came in their backyard. 'To come out where we're unfamiliar with the desert golf conditions, to come out on top and get a win with a little bit of a target on our back was really good,' he said. National Golf Invitational: Scores The Buckeyes trailed Utah State by a shot on the first day, had leapfrogged them by the end of 36 holes and slowly pulled away over the course of Sunday's final round. Three Ohio State players finished in the top 7 individually, and the Buckeyes led the field in birdies ''Fight' has been our mentality all spring, so they did a good job hanging in there, taking advantage of the chances when we got them and making some birdies down the stretch was really cool,' Moseley said. 'It was a great team win.' While Ohio State, on the other side of its senior exodus, spent the week finding out what its next chapter can look like, a similar transition period awaits Utah State in the fall. The NGI amounted to the final ride for graduates John Cook, Julio Arronte and Esteban Jaramillo. The Aggies made six team birdies in the first three holes on Sunday and hung within a few shots of Ohio State all day. 'We beat them on Day 1, so I think they were like, 'OK we can do this,'' Utah State head coach Dean Johansen said. That sophomore Enrique Karg was the man to lead them is a good sign for Utah State. Karg, of Guadalajara, Mexico, only finished inside the top 20 in one start during the regular season. At Southern Dunes, he came out of the gate with a bogey-free 7-under 65 and parlayed that into a Sunday playoff victory for his first individual title in a year. Karg is a player who struggled with a lot on his plate this past year – from school to golf to family. 'I had a rough spring this year,' Karg said. 'I had a lot on my mind, and it was a lot of up and down so playing good in this event, it was very good for me.' Karg felt he took advantage of his distance all three rounds and put himself in favorable positions, reaching several par 5s in two and leading the field in par-4 scoring. The week wasn't all smooth sailing, however, and Johansen watched Karg fight for a second-round 70 to stay in the tournament. 'The mark of a true human being is how they handle adversity, and you couldn't tell from 5 feet to 500 yards if he was making a bogey or a birdie,' Johansen said, 'and I love that.' Karg, who finished the week at 12-under 204, had to play an extra hole with Richmond's Carson Baez for the individual title, and nearly holed his 70-foot birdie putt on that extra trip down the 18th to do it. His tap-in par was good enough. He Facetimed his family back home in Mexico right away. As a result of his win, Karg earns an exemption into the Southeastern Amateur, which he'll add to the lineup of other amateur events (the Memorial Amateur in Sacramento, California, the Mexican International Amateur in Guadalajara and a U.S. Amateur qualifier) he has planned for the summer. As this Utah State team scatters, Cook, Arronte and Jaramillo are headed for professional careers. Johansen knew early week it would be emotional to see them go. This team's international makeup is largely thanks to the work of assistant coach Erik Skinner, who took Johansen's idea to expand the roster globally and 'found some of the best young men – phenomenal kids,' Johansen said. He has always been interested in the whole player, not just level of golf talent. Johansen began his day on Sunday with an early workout before driving a couple miles down the road for a protein shake. When he pulled into a gas station, he met Cook, one of his three seniors. Cook, who has committed himself to getting healthy these past three years, was out on a morning run before the round. Cook, as a runner, demonstrates exactly the level of commitment this senior class gave to Utah State. Nevermind that they all reassembled post-graduation for a final tournament – Cook ditched a full cycle of marathon training, skipping the Ogden (Utah) Marathon on Saturday to be here with his team instead. And that, funny enough, was how Johnson lost it, three hours before his team ever hit a shot. 'I was driving back to the hotel and he was running alongside the road and I just started tearing up,' said Johansen, who has praised the character of his whole squad this week. 'I'm so proud of the young man he has become.'
USA Today
18-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Ohio State is looking for a different kind of postseason purpose at National Golf Invitational
Ohio State is looking for a different kind of postseason purpose at National Golf Invitational The past two postseasons have been dramatically different for Ohio State. A year ago, the Buckeyes lineup included four seniors and a redshirt freshman, and that squad battled all the way to the semifinal match at the NCAA Championship. This year, at No. 75 in the national rankings after a fifth-place finish in the Big 10, they weren't selected to the NCAA Championship field at all. Head coach Jay Moseley realized his team would probably be on the outside looking in as they traveled home from the conference championship on April 27. He gave his team a bit of tough love. 'Look, this isn't how our season is supposed to end,' he told them that evening, 'and that should leave some pain and suffering that gets you guys fired up and ready to go for next year.' His men agreed. National Golf Invitational: Scores The next morning, however, Moseley started talking with his administration about competing in the National Golf Invitational. He called a meeting with the team at noon that day and met with a squad that still had the deer-in-the-headlights look of being at such a low point 14 hours earlier. Regardless, the team aligned on what a different kind of postseason event could do in terms of building momentum for next season. The NGI is in its third year, and this year more than ever it's apparent that it can mean different things to different teams. Ohio State, for example, leads the 10-team field at 18 under through 36 holes, but the Buckeyes started the day trailing Utah State by a shot. The Aggies haven't been selected to the postseason since 1981. Only one player on this season's 10-man Ohio State roster has played in an NCAA regional. The core of Moseley's lineup this season included three sophomores and two freshmen. Through two rounds, Moseley's decision to rally his squad for an NGI start looks like a savvy coaching move indeed. Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, is a course where Moseley sees a lot of scoring opportunities. Scores were slightly higher in Saturday's second round across the board as winds picked up, but Moseley liked the venue as much as the tournament itself because he felt like it was a golf course that would create opportunities to work on some targeted areas of development for Ohio State – namely, wedge play. 'Wedge play this spring has certainly not been up to our standards so coming out here we felt like we could really get a good sense of where we've made progress the last couple weeks,' Moseley said. 'For the most part, we've done a really good job of creating scoring opportunities, hitting wedges close to be able to roll in some putts, making some birdies, which has been good to see.' There's another huge advantage to competing at Southern Dunes: The course is set to host a men's regional in 2026 and, as Moseley noted, you have a one-in-six chance of going to any regional venue on a given year. 'We've kind of enjoyed being together – big eyes mindset, their approach this week has kind of been let's run it back one more time this year and leave everything out there and go out and play with as much belief and as much trust as we can in each other and get some momentum going into next year when essentially everybody is back for at least a couple years,' he said. Entering the final round, Ohio State has just a one-shot lead on Utah State, a team that just finished sixth in the Mountain West Conference Championship for its best conference finish in 12 years. The two teams have opened up a sizable gap on the rest of the field, with West Virginia sitting in third at 8 under and Oregon State fourth at 7 under. Oregon State's Bradley Smolinski and Utah State's Enrique Karg are tied for first in the individual race at 9 under. Joe Wilson IV has been Ohio State's leading scorer so far this week, and at 7 under, is only two off the individual lead. The junior underwent double hip and ab surgery 18 months ago and missed all of last season recovering. 'He's been a good shot in the arm for us coming off of basically nine months of no competition and not a lot of physical golf at all,' Moseley said. Timotej Formanek, a freshman from the Czech Republic, has adapted well to desert golf, too, this week and contributed rounds of 70-69. Ohio State leads the field in par-4 and par-5 scoring and has made more birdies than any team. 'We've definitely got some guys that can play well out here, we just need to sharpen up some wedge play and clean up some short game on the par 3s,' Moseley said. 'We'll be in a good spot coming down the stretch tomorrow, hopefully.'
USA Today
17-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Deep Utah State roster regroups for one last ride at National Golf Invitational
Deep Utah State roster regroups for one last ride at National Golf Invitational It would have been perfectly noble for Utah State's three graduating seniors to ride into the sunset two weeks ago after a sixth-place finish at the Mountain West Conference. That's the best conference finish for a Utah State team in 12 years. Every player finished under par – a program first. For one thing, the team had already dispersed – to Colombia, Mexico, Texas – but one of the best things about this team, from where head coach Dean Johansen is sitting, is that they indeed came back. Utah State hasn't played a postseason event since 1981. An invitation to the National Golf Invitational broke that nearly 50-year drought, and one very savvy travel coordinator at the university in Logan, Utah, brought the five men back from parts the world over to meet within an hour of each other at Phoenix International Airport. 'It means a lot to me personally – just the young men that they are, the sacrifice they're willing to make for their team and their coaches and their school,' said Johansen, who puts a premium on developing the whole player, and always has in his 25 years at the helm of the Aggie program. National Golf Invitational: Scores Utah State went 11 under in the opening round of the NGI at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, for a one-shot lead on Ohio State. It's a course with which the Aggies are familiar, having played in the Wyoming-hosted Cowboy Classic here the past two years. 'This is our third event at this golf course in two years,' Johansen said. '. . . I think that's a pretty good advantage.' In all the teams he's coached, Johansen puts this one at the top of the list when it comes to depth of talent. That's a testament to him as well, considering that a small recruiting budget and cold, snowy weather make it no small feat to draw a squad like this one to Logan. 'It is validating,' Johansen said of the NGI opportunity, 'and these kids worked hard all winter long. We're hitting balls indoors, we're driving five and a half hours to find grass to play on for a weekend and they came out at the conference championship and played as good as we've ever played at the Mountain West, broke a few school records for us, best finish ever for us. . . . We weren't really planning on this (NGI start). They all were willing to come back from their respective countries.' For Esteban Jaramillo and Julio Arronte, that meant delaying the start of professional careers. Johansen's third senior, John Cook, already planned to hold off turning pro until playing the Utah State Amateur and the team's home course, Logan Country Club in July. Arronte contributed a 5-under 67 for Utah State on Friday that went a long way in pulling his team up the leaderboard. Sophomore Enrique Karg did two better, posting a bogey-free round of 7-under 65. 'All of the guys on the team, if you look at our spring and even last fall, any one of them can get it going at any time and just get on the birdie train and today, we had a ton as a team,' Johansen said. Karg leads the individual race with Utah Valley's Clement Lepine one shot behind him. The next 36 holes will be bittersweet for Johansen but fun to watch regardless. This team, he said, has made an impact not just on the program, but on the community. They're well respected at Logan Country Club, the team's home course where Johansen is also the golf pro, and they've already shown that they have the guts to overcome the realities of a Utah climate that's not particularly golf friendly. 'This is a win for us no matter how we finish in the tournament,' Johansen said when asked to look ahead at how an NGI berth positions his program for the future. 'It just elevates my program that we're in the postseason, how well they played today and I'm planning on them playing good the next two days.'
USA Today
16-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Rhode Island came from NIT country to prove itself at the National Golf Invitational
Rhode Island came from NIT country to prove itself at the National Golf Invitational In the Northeast, the National Invitational Tournament – the annual men's college basketball tournament for Division I teams that do not qualify for the NCAA tournament – truly resonates. That's especially true for a guy like Gregg Burke, head men's golf coach at Rhode Island. Burke, who grew up as a Providence College and Holy Cross basketball fan (and attended the latter school), recognizes that any comparison to the NIT will be received in an enormous way. And now he's living it. Burke's Rams received an invitation to the third annual National Golf Invitational this week, the men's college golf equivalent of the NIT. It's the team's first postseason appearance since the NCAA stopped selecting teams for the postseason according to districts. The invite perked administrative ears on Rhode Island's campus all the way up to the university president's office. Every fundraising phone call that Burke made to get here was a pleasure. 'Any reference to this being like the NIT of golf is monstrous for a school like Rhode Island because we have such tradition with the actual NIT,' Burke said. Now imagine being a member of the Rhode Island team that won four times in the fall season, climbed inside the top 160 of the national men's golf rankings and then scored that NGI invite. 'Pumped' doesn't begin to cover it. When Burke found out that a spot in the NGI field was possible, he initially kept it to himself. When the invite came through, he presented it casually to the team. At first they didn't believe him. 'Once they took grasp of it, it was pretty cool,' Burke said. Burke's career in athletics is layered, with experiences in everything from sports information to administration to NCAA tournament management. And so he took the week one step further. 'I've seen how people do it,' Burke said, referencing the hype in which many programs surround their postseason squads. 'When we officially got the invite, I went to our athletic director, who was super stoked, and said I want to do this big time.' Ultimately, Burke's goal was to make this postseason start special for the players who made it possible. He had new uniforms printed with the NGI logo for all three tournament rounds. It's a big opportunity for Rhode Island, one of three Atlantic 10 Conference teams (George Mason, Richmond) in the field at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, and Burke wanted it to seem so for the players. The 10-team field also includes Ohio State from the Big 10, Oregon State from the West Coast and West Virginia from the Big 12. Rhode Island knows what it's up against but at the same time, this team came to play the golf course. And Burke loves a good underdog story – always has throughout his career. 'I kind of cut my teeth on the mentality that there's nothing that's insurmountable,' he said. '. . . We're here to try to play up and really prove to ourselves, as much as anyone else, that we can compete.' Freshmen Luke Stennett and Tyler Bruneau anchor Rhode Island's lineup. Stennett finished in the top 10 in all 10 tournaments he appeared in this season. Graduate student Sean Magarian has been a newcomer to this level of golf after transferring in from Assumption, an NCAA Division II school in Worcester, Massachusetts. Many coaches might not travel a senior to a postseason event like the NGI, choosing instead to use it as development for returners. Burke, however, looks at it as a tangible reward for all the work put in throughout the year, and so Magarian, who helped the Rams get to this point, completes the lineup. 'I'm really, really, really old-fashioned,' Burke said. 'My team has won like 28 times in my 14 years, it's not because I'm a swing coach. We have won on discipline and pride.' Burke's men studiously poured over their yardage books as they flew around the course with the first practice-round tee time of the day on Thursday. Only, Burke doesn't call it a practice round. 'We call it the pre-tournament round,' he said. 'We're here to see where we have to respect the golf course and where we can take advantage.' The major adjustment for his team on an unfamiliar desert layout has been in carry distance, especially off the tee. Only one player on Burke's team has played desert golf, so the sheer aesthetics – mountain views beyond the greens – only adds to the excitement. 'There's so many fairway traps, you really have to dial in your driver or, we're hitting irons off tees because it's flying further, so that's a change obviously but the climate is spectacular.'
