It’s been two weeks since the Cougars last hit the links, ending the regular season with a 10th place finish at the Robert Kepler Intercollegiate in Columbus, Ohio.
UH finished with a team score of 904, led by junior Clark Mitzner, who shot a 224 in his three rounds to finish 33rd, including two rounds in the 70s.
The C-USA Tournament begins Sunday in Orlando, Fla., and runs through Tuesday.It is hosted by Central Florida at the Red Tail Golf Club.
“We know a little bit about the golf course,” head coach Jonathan Dismuke said. “We’ve just been trying to prepare ourselves for what we’re going to face. The golf course has been very scorable in the past,”
The Cougars head into this weekend’s C-USA Tournament on a bit of a slide, having placed 10th, 16th, ninth, 12th and 14th in their last five tournaments to end the regular season.
Dismuke knows his team has to turn it on.
“We’ve been working hard on a lot of different stuff trying to better prepare ourselves for Red Tail. We’ve got, I think, three guys that have seen the gold course before,” Dismuke said.
Mitzner, Jackie Lindsey and Matt Eschenburg have led the Cougars this year, with at least 11 tournaments, 29 rounds and a scoring average below 76.06.
“All three of them would be nice,” Dismuke said with a smile. “When we’ve played well, we’ve had multiple guys finish in the top 20, and this semester it’s been awhile since we’ve had a real solid performance from multiple guys.”
The Robert Kepler Intercollegiate Golf Invitational was UH’s last warm-up tournament of the year.
A berth to the NCAA Tournament will be on the line this weekend.
“I think there were so many things we did well (at the Kepler Invitational). We kind of grinded rounds out. We weren’t playing well at all,” Dismuke said. “We got off to some rough starts … if we ever get off to a good start, typically we play pretty well.”
Putting has been an issue for UH this season and Dismuke hopes his team is aware of that.
“If we can have a great putting week, that’s the fastest way to be competitive,” Dismuke said. “If you want to single out one particular thing, I think that’s what you would love to have — our best putting week.”
