The Mizzou men’s golf team is competing Friday and Saturday at the William H. Tucker Invitational, hosted by the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
They will play 54 holes on UNM’s historic Championship Golf Course, which has been the site of four NCAA DI men’s national championships and one women’s championship.
Experience on the course
For many of the coaches bringing their teams to Albuquerque, the Championship Golf Course is a familiar site – especially for Mizzou men’s golf head coach Glen Millican. Before he coached
at Mizzou, Millican spent 25 years coaching at UNM. And before that, he spent another five years there as a student-athlete on the golf team.
Mizzou men’s golf assistant coach Sean Carlon played under Millican at UNM from 2015-19, and then coached with him for a couple of years before they both came to Mizzou.
“Sean and I are a little bit more familiar with this place than most, that’s for sure,” Millican said.
With decades of combined experience on the course, Millican and Carlon have unique expertise to prepare the Tigers for competition.
“He knows all the tricks about the place,” senior Veikka Viskari said about Millican.
Having seen “probably tens of thousands of shots,” Viskari said Millican advised the team on the best way to play certain holes. “He’s been helpful in showing us the right lines off the tee,” Viskari said.
“[I] definitely played a lot more when I was on the team, but yeah, certainly spent 30 years on that golf course,” Millican said. “There’s not many shots or scenarios that I haven’t been a part of myself, or seen players over the years be a part of.”
The Tigers traveled to Albuquerque on Tuesday and got to play an additional nine holes before the practice round.
Mizzou lineup
In addition to Viskari, the lineup includes junior Trent Mierl, junior Paxton Maxwell, sophomore Esteban Cruz Bonilla and freshman Antoni Hawkins. Junior Andy Yang will play as an individual.
This is Cruz Bonilla’s first tournament appearance this season.
Competition
Mizzou is the only SEC school in a field of 15 division one teams.
Host UNM is coming off a team victory at the Canadian Collegiate Invitational and a runner-up finish at the Pan Pacific Collegiate Super League. Senior Johnnie Clark won both tournaments for the Lobos.
Similar to UNM, Colorado has also logged first- and second-place finishes at their tournaments this season.
BYU and Arizona are also strong contenders — they were listed at numbers 23 and 24 in preseason polling, respectively.
Here’s a full list of competing teams:
- Arkansas State University
- Brigham Young University
- California State University, Long Beach
- Grand Canyon University
- New Mexico State University
- San Diego State University
- Santa Clara University
- Southern Methodist University
- University of Arizona
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- University of Colorado
- University of Missouri, Columbia
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas
- University of New Mexico
- University of Texas at El Paso
Golfers will play 36 holes on Friday and 18 holes on Saturday. Click here to follow live results.
