Rutgers
Steelwood Collegiate
Oct 27 | Men's Golf
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men's golf wraps up its fall schedule this weekend at the Steelwood Collegiate Invitational, a 54-hole event hosted by South Alabama at Steelwood Country Club in Loxley, Ala. The Scarlet Knights will play 36 holes on Saturday, Oct. 31, starting with an 8 a.m. CT shotgun, before the final 18 on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Rutgers comes to Alabama on a strong run. The Scarlet Knights placed third at the Gopher Invitational, second at the Hamptons Intercollegiate at Maidstone Club, and sixth at the Quail Valley Collegiate Invitational. At Quail Valley, they shot a 17-under 271 in the final round, the low team round of the tournament, and moved up five spots on the final day.
Steelwood has been good to the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers finished second at last year's event, and Luke Koenig was the individual runner-up and was named Big Ten Golfer of the Week.
"We're going to stay loose and have a lot of fun," head coach Rob Shutte said. "We'll get to compete on some really nice golf courses in our area, then go down there and finish it out. I'm very excited about where we're at. We just have to have the juice to finish it off."
Junior Bennett Espenshade has led Rutgers in two of its three most recent events. He tied for ninth at the Gopher Invitational and tied for fourth at Maidstone at 3-under.
Sophomore Lucas Politano comes off his best finish of the fall. He closed with a 6-under 66 at Quail Valley, moving up 24 spots to tie for 11th at 3-under 213. He was part of the Rutgers lineup that finished second at Steelwood a year ago.
"Last year at Steelwood, the weather obviously wasn't great. We got rained out the last round, but we had a good team finish there," Politano said. "I'm really looking forward to getting back out there with the same kind of guys and seeing what we can do. We don't have any expectations, other than doing the best we can on every shot. We know how good we can be."
Junior Argyle Downes has finished in the top 20 in each of the last three events: 12th at Gopher, T9 at Maidstone and T18 at Quail Valley. TJ Thompson closed with a 68 at Quail Valley and jumped 20 spots to tie for 26th.
The Field
Rutgers is one of 15 teams in the field. Fellow Big Ten programs Maryland and Nebraska will also compete, along with SEC programs Auburn, Mississippi State and Texas A&M, and ACC teams Georgia Tech, Virginia and Virginia Tech. Iowa State, Kansas State, Kennesaw State, Memphis, Rice and host South Alabama round out the field.
Memphis' Yixiang Wang is the defending Steelwood medalist. He also took medalist honors at Quail Valley last week at 11-under.
For the first two rounds, Rutgers is grouped with Kansas State and Rice. Players ride carts on Saturday and walk on Sunday.
About Steelwood
Former U.S. Open champion Jerry Pate designed the Steelwood course. GolfWeek ranked it among the top five private courses in Alabama in 2019. The tournament's College Am-Am benefits Pilots for Christ, which flies critically ill patients to hospitals at no charge.
