Southern Miss Men’s Golf returns to action at Husky Invitational starting Monday

Published 11:18 am Monday, September 20, 2021

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Fresh off a third-place team showing at the Jim Rivers Intercollegiate this past week, the Southern Miss men’s golf squad travels West to Bremerton, Wash., to compete in the Husky Invitational, hosted by the University of Washington.

The 54-hole event will be played at the par 72 Olympic course at the Golf Mountain Golf Club. The teams will play a pair of 10 a.m. CT, shotgun starts on Monday and Tuesday. The teams will play a continuous 36 holes on Monday and finish the event on Tuesday with a final round.

Following the outstanding performance to open the campaign, the Golden Eagles jumped into the latest Golfweek rankings at the No. 42 spot.

“Last week was a great performance to start the season,” said Southern Miss golf coach Eddie Brescher. “The nation took notice and placed us 42nd in the Golfweek rankings, which is great but that is just one event. We are focused on the season as a whole. We are focused on the next event. Now in Seattle, we begin a new challenge against a great West Coast field.”

Senior Hunter Atkins (West Point, Miss.) led the way for the Golden Eagles in the opening tournament, posting a nine-under 207 for a second-place individual showing to start his final season.

The Golden Eagles enjoyed another top 10 finish from sophomore Thongpipat Rattanayanon (Bangkok, Thailand) as he enjoyed a five-under par 211 to finish tied for seventh in the event.

On the strength of 10 total par or below rounds from the team in the first tournament, the team was able to post below par scores in all three rounds since February of 2019.

The 16-team field includes four other teams ranks by Golfweek Top 50 in the lastest rankings including host No. 10 Washington, Washington State, Seattle University, No. 14 Oregon, Oregon State, St. Mary’s, No. 37 Missouri, Long Beach State, San Jose State, No. 5 San Diego State, Boise State, Idaho, Nevada, Cal Poly and Toledo.

“We scheduled this tournament in Washington to test our program on a more national scale,” said Brescher. “This is a great opportunity for us to perform well as we will not see a lot of these teams for the remainder of the season. Playing good against these West Coast teams will do great things for our program.

“That’s all great, but our focus is zero expectations and one shot at a time. We will count up the scores after play. Sounds like a silly concept, but good golf requires a certain level of focus. So far, our guys have done a good job of that.”

Fans can follow the live scoring by clicking here.