Sept. 2, 2014
The Auburn men's golf team hopes to start the 2014-15 season strong and continue improving under sixth-year head coach Nick Clinard. Auburn will open up the regular season on Friday at the Carpet Capital Collegiate, a tournament they won back in 2011. The Tigers enter the season with a strong roster, returning seven of nine players.
"All nine guys are very good players," said Clinard. "We have a few elite guys as well, and we will ride their coattails and hopefully have a lot of competition on our team, which is going to push everybody to get better."
Redshirt junior Michael Johnson, the 2013 Alabama Golf Association Player of the Year, is ready to get back on the course and compete for Auburn after missing last season due to injury. In the summer of 2013, Johnson won the Men's Alabama State Amateur and the Dogwood Invitational. He is looking forward to competing with the team this season.
Lone senior Dan Stringfellow is the team's most experienced player coming into this season. Stringfellow advanced to match play at the U.S. Amateur this summer and looks to be a leader for the younger golfers on the team.
"It's pretty cool to be the oldest guy on the team and have one last go at it," Stringfellow said. "I'm really excited to get out there and travel and compete with all the guys one last time. We have a solid team out there, and we're all looking forward to it."
"I think we have a really good chance to play well," said Johnson. "We could win as many tournaments as we want to."
Of Auburn's four sophomores, Matt Gilchrest, Blake Messer and Will Long each received All-SEC Freshman of the Week honors last season. Gilchrest, a Freshman All-SEC selection, won the UK Bluegrass Invitational while Messer won the USA Individual Tournament and Long finished 10th in the USF Invitational.
Redshirt sophomore Ryan Benton finished second in the Alabama State Amateur and 12th in the Players Amateur. Long finished third in the Palmetto Amateur and Gilchrest finished third in the Trans-Miss. Redshirt junior Jake Mondy also had a successful summer, winning the Virginia State Amateur for the second time in three years and finishing 12th in the Northeast Amateur.
The team is excited to defend its first place finishes at the Tiger Invitational in Auburn at Grand National in March and the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate in South Carolina. Other familiar tournaments for the Tigers are the US Collegiate in Alpharetta, Ga., and the Amer Ari Invitational in Hawaii.
"Keep following us. We're going to have a great team," said Clinard. "If you take the last four years combined, our average national ranking is 13th in the country at the end of the year, which has established us as one of the elite programs. We want to be better than that and are going to continue to work hard and to make the fans proud."