UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's golf team travels to Palm Coast, Florida, for 2019 Big Ten Match Play, now in its 11th year. All conference men's golf teams will compete on the Conservatory or Ocean courses at the Hammock Beach Resort Friday-Saturday, Feb. 8-9. Play gets underway on Friday with an 8 a.m. ET shotgun start.
No. 5 seed Penn State plays No. 12 seed Wisconsin on the Conservatory course, a par-72, 7,183-yard course designed by Tom Watson, in round one action. The winning team advances to the quarterfinals at 1:30 p.m. ET Friday.
"Big Match Play has been a great event for the conference to open the second half of the season," said Penn State head men's golf coach Greg Nye. "We play have played at some awesome venues in this BIG Match Play since its inception, and the Conservatory and Ocean Courses at Hammock Beach provide another great stage for this competition. The length, bunkers, water, and usually plenty of wind, test and ready our games for events in the coming months."
The Nittany Lions' three seniors, JD Hughes, Charles Huntzinger and Ryan Dornes, juniors Alec Bard and Ryan Davis and sophomores James McHugh and Louis Olsakovsky will represent Penn State.
The single-elimination bracket includes all 14 teams, and each team match consists of six individual matches. The bracket seeds were determined using the Nov. 20, 2018, final fall Golfstat rankings. No. 1 Illinois and No. 2 Northwestern each received a first-round bye.
In Friday's quarterfinals, the Illini play the winner of the Michigan State/Indiana match and No. 2 Northwestern takes the course against the winner of Minnesota/Maryland.
On Saturday, the morning session (8 a.m. ET) features the championship semifinals and consolation semifinals, while Saturday afternoon concludes with the championship, third-, fifth- and seventh-place matches.
The Nittany Lions defeated eventual 2018 co-champion Michigan State in the first round before falling to undefeated Wisconsin in the afternoon session.
Live scoring for the 2019 Big Ten Match Play championship can be found on Birdie Fire, while live updates will be provided on the event's official Twitter handle, @B1GMatchPlay.
