Aug. 23, 2016
Head Coach - Greg Nye
Opening Statement:
GN: We had a lot of alumni bookending the summer and if you were looking at the newspapers you saw something that was pretty special that happened in the early summer. TJ Howe and Kevin Foley, Penn State alumni, who have been playing the tours both qualified for the United States Open and what made that extra special was that it was held right here in Pennsylvania. That was very exciting and we had a couple near misses with Cole Miller (New Tripoli, PA) almost getting into the Open himself. That opened up the summer and it closed with Robert Rohanna winning the Pennsylvania Open so you have a 2008 graduate in Robert, 2010 graduate in Kevin, and a 2011 graduate in TJ so that was big news for our program as far as our alumni go. We have some recent alumni that did some things too. Over the rest of the summer we had guys win what we might call major amateur events and there were five of those over the summer. We had an alum win the New Hampshire amateur in Chris Houston and just prior to that happening Charles Huntzinger (Duluth, GA) who's a Golf Week All-American and returning sophomore won the Dogwood Invitational. That is a major amateur event in the Atlanta area and draws players from all over the south. That's been kind of a big deal with a lot of people mentioning that to me over the summer, some of my southern competitors. Those two things happened early and Christian Elliott (Port Perry, Ontario) went back home, played a decent Eastern Amateur, then went back to Toronto and the Toronto Star runs one of the major amateur events in Canada every summer. Christian battled back in that tournament and ended up on top. That was a great win and another championship that was won this summer in the Pennsylvania Open and Cole won the Pennsylvania Amateur. He edged out one of our alumni in JD Dornes in the last round. That was an exciting event to watch and then in Washington D.C. there is a major metropolitan amateur that they run down there which returning sophomore Evan Santa (Edgewater, MD) emerged the winner in that amateur. We had four individuals qualify for the United States Amateur which is very hard to do. It's hard to get even just one individual qualified and we had four. Two alumni in Jeff Vartelas and Chris Houston. Incoming transfer JD Hughes (Carlisle, PA) and then the final one was sophomore Ryan Dornes (Lancaster, PA). I've covered the waterfront with just about our entire roster doing something over the summer. We're excited about this young team that we have coming in this fall. We have three guys of our nine that have played more than three collegiate events so the rest of our guys are under that. We are very young this year, but as you can see there is reason to be excited.
Q: Cole (Miller) what was that experience like for you going through the process with the US Open and trying to qualify? How different is that experience versus a regular tournament?
CM: For the US Open, it's almost like a reach at this point right now starting as an amateur just because you have so many professionals. It's one you really want and if you can pull it off, it says a lot about where your game is at so for me I put a lot prep work in. I went to my local qualifying course which is close so I put in maybe two or three rounds there and then a solid five hours a day on the course about a week before the tournament. I barely made it through the local on a playoff and from there I went to sectionals where I played really well, but there were 32 professionals at this level with only 24 amateurs so you have a lot of guys where golf is their job. I missed qualifying by two, actually tied with previous alumni JD Dornes. We both tied at 4-under and 6-under was the cut. It takes a lot of work to make one of those, but to play that well and really put myself in contention shows that we're going in the right direction with the team and my game personally.
Q: Coach you mentioned having such a young team, could you talk about the process of getting those guys up to speed and being able to contribute right away?
GN: It's a challenge for any sport and we have a small team. The up-to-speed part really starts today with a team meeting, but it starts before they get here. Trying to embrace these students before they get on campus so there's a lot of relationship building that's going on so instilling that element of caring and trust. These two guys next to me know that the critical things when you go on into competition are the things that happen off the golf course while we prepare for travel, while we travel, and of course during and after the event. These guys have to lead and the guys behind them have got to be really aware of their age, where the leadership is coming from, and then they have to follow. We need to be confident in them and very much in tune with why we're trying to play events and not get surprised which can be tough for young guys.
Q: With everything starting going back to school, how do you keep on top of your game?
CM: Personally I just carve out the time because it is such a big part of our lives so we always have stuff going on, but there's enough time to practice. It's exciting for us because we have a young time, but a very solid team as well. You want to be in the best shape for upcoming qualifying to really perform.
CE: I'd also add that the work we've put in has already been done this summer. The practice we're going to do this fall is really going to be just tournament preparation. Our swing work that we did was this summer and last spring, so we're really ready to go this fall.
Q: When you see two guys play at the Open and back in June having four in the US Amateur, can you describe the feeling for you as a coach with the pride in laying the foundation for guys to get to that point?
GN: Kevin and TJ, Cole and JD who almost made it, it's just a tough process to get there. I've seen TJ and Kevin on the various tours excel and I'm very proud of doing that. That lone wolf routine out there on the tours is a difficult life and they're still pushing hard. We still communicate with them and it's very exciting and I'm very proud of them. I think the first day I visited Oakmont was the day when there were three major rain delays and I think I saw a total of four holes played out there, but I was so excited making the trip over there to get a chance to see them on the big stage.
Q: Christian and Cole, what are you guys most excited about in terms of taking on a leadership role and bringing those younger guys under your wing?
CE: We're definitely excited to adopt the younger guys on the team into our culture. Over the past couple of years our team has been really tight knit so implementing that and just getting ready to compete. I know we're all pretty fired up for the fall season to get off to a good start and pick up where we left off last year.
CM: I would agree with that and then I'd also add that I'd like to see where we can take them because I know coming in for me personally I wasn't at the level that I am now so it's really cool to take these guys in and see them grow and build their games.
Q: What are your favorite places to play around the conference?
CE: For me personally, our sport is a little different from others because a lot of the course we'll play aren't in conference, but one that I am excited to go back to every year is the Scarlet course at Ohio State. It's definitely a special challenge which I learned my freshman year. We play it in April and we actually played on a white golf course because it was covered snow so it was a different experience for us, but we always look forward to the challenge.
CM: I would say for me it would be the Big Ten Championships each year. It's always at a special site and the last two years has been held at Victoria National and that is just an amazing course. It's a lot of fun and hosts a WEB.com tour event.
GN: It's actually set up for the WEB.com so all of the officials are there so it's a PGA Tour staff.
Q: Are the professional courses set up different that the course you'll play for a college match?
CM: Not really. Most of the time they'll actually take in some college tournaments right before they have a professional event to try and test out the course a little bit. You see that pretty often, but they're usually set up in a very similar manner.
Q: Just looking at the schedule I see The Inverness Club is your second stop of the year. That's a fairly historical course, but how did that end up on your schedule?
GN: We were out there about four years ago and it's a golf course I'm very familiar with. I had coached at Bowling Green for the eight years prior to coming to Penn State and it's just up the street. We were up there at least once a year playing there, but that's the type of golf course you go to that you walk into the clubhouse and you're just consumed with the history on the walls. Who sat here and this shot was played here and Inverness had the infamous Hinkle Tree. It's exciting when you go to golf courses where they hold majors and I'm excited to be going back.