Contact: Jenna McElroy, Sports Info & Social Media Intern, mcelroy@midwestconference.org
GRINNELL, Iowa – The 2019 Midwest Conference (MWC) Men’s Golf Championship is scheduled for this Thursday, May 2 through Saturday, May 4. Knox College enters as the preseason favorite as the Prairie Fire look to knock off defending champion Lake Forest College.
The Championship is currently set to tee-off Thursday at 11:00 am. Tee times and results can be found at the
championship page.
Knox last won the conference championship in 2008 and heads into the weekend with a league best 310.5 average score. The Prairie Fire won the 2018 Mark Laesch Award as they recorded the largest improvement in stroke average per round by 27.58; this season they dropped another six strokes off that average.
Five Prairie Fire golfers all averaged rounds under 80 for the season with a sixth, Lucas Tollin, coming in right at 80 strokes per round. Sophomore Josh Schumacher, two-time MWC Performer of the Week, leads the team with a 76.2 average and a team-best 2 first place finishes. Duncan Wheeler, an All-MWC finisher last year, is just behind Schumacher at 77.6 followed by fellow 2018 All-MWC performer Jason White at 78.8. Rounding out Knox’s top five are Elliot Bainbridge and Luis Liendo who averaged 79.1 and 79.3 strokes respectively.
Defending champion Lake Forest recorded both the lowest team round and lowest individual round of all the conference teams this season. At the Elmhurst Fall Invite, the Foresters recorded a round of 301 while Ricky Schmidt carded a 68. The Prairie Fire may have five golfers averaging rounds under 80 but the Foresters boast the league’s top two as Ricky Schmidt and Caleb Dzierzynski both averaged 75.9 strokes. Jacob Kruggman, who tied for third in 2018, is right behind at 77.2.
St. Norbert College’s Jack Markham is the highest placing returner after finishing as the runner-up last season. Markham enters the 2019 championship off his two best rounds of the season after carding a 73 at Carthage and a 74 at Carroll last week. Luke Bourneuf leads St. Norbert with an average round of 76.7 after just missing All-MWC honors last year with an 11th place finish. As a team, the Green Knights are averaging a round of 334.2 virtually tied with Illinois College’s 334.1.
The Blueboys lost 2018 MWC Individual Champion Aaron Jeffers to graduation but do return All-MWC performer Ryan Kauffman as well as Byrce Oden who finished in 12th place. This season Oden led Illinois College with an average of 79.8 with Kauffman second at 82.4.
Completing the field are Monmouth College and Grinnell College. The Scots return Nate Monroe and Sam Gillen who finished 14th and 15th last year then led the team this season with an average round just over 84. Ravi Levens who averaged a round of 82 and Sam Naik who carded the team’s lowest round of the season with a 78 at the Jim Wetherbee Invite lead the Pioneers.