College golf takes center stage this weekend at Fallen Oak, the Beau Rivage casino’s hidden treasure in the otherwise sleepy community of Saucier, a few miles from the sandy beaches of Gulfport and Biloxi.
There, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Southern Miss will combine to host the 14-team Fallen Oak Invitational, which in just three years has become one of the most prestigious fall college golf tournaments in America. Fourteen teams, including eight from the SEC and three from the Big 10 Conference, will compete.
Rick Cleveland“This is what we had in mind when we got this thing started,” said Chris Malloy, coach of the No. 4 ranked Ole Miss Rebels. “This is an outstanding field, one of the best you will see in college golf, and they will be challenged by a world class, championship course. Fallen Oak is special.”
Ole Miss, which boasts defending NCAA Champion Michael La Sasso, rates as the tournament favorite with its national ranking and three of the world’s top 45 amateur golfers. La Sasso ranks No. 9, Cameron Tankersley No. 17 and Cohen Trolio No. 45 in the latest world amateur golf rankings.
The Rebels have finished in the top three of all their previous three fall tournaments: a second at the Knoxville Collegiate, a victory at the Honors Course Collegiate at Chattanooga, and a third at the Hamptons Intercollegiate in New York. They played two of the three without La Sasso, who was participating in PGA Tour tournaments.
“Do I think we’re playing our best golf? No, probably not yet,” Malloy said. “But if you told me we’d play two of our first three tournaments without the defending NCAA Champion, have the finishes we had and be ranked like we are, I think anybody would sign up for that. I’m pleased with where we are. I like this squad.”
Mississippi State and Southern Miss also have had good starts to the season. State is coming off a victory in the Cullen Brown Collegiate, hosted by Kentucky. For the first time in school history, Southern Miss won two straight tournaments, the JT Poston Invitational at Waynesville, North Carolina, and the Badger Invitational at Madison, Wisconsin, where the Golden Eagles shot 23-under par for 54 holes and won by 10 shots.
“I think we’re playing some really solid golf,” said State coach Dusty Smith. “Winning at Kentucky was certainly a step in the right direction. We’re looking forward to building on that at Fallen Oak.”
Jake Moffitt, Mississippi State Am champion, will pla y for USM.Eddie Brescher’s Southern Miss team might be the best in school history, featuring Mississippi State Amateur champion Jake Moffitt of Ripley who won the State Am in record-breaking fashion at Grand Bear, just a few miles from Fallen Oak. Moffitt, a 19-year-old freshman, has averaged a team-best 69.67 strokes per round for his first 12 rounds of college golf.
The Golden Eagles are coming off a disappointing final round performance in the Little Rock Buick GMC Classic earlier this week, dropping from second to sixth place in the 16-team field with the team’s first over-par round of the season.
“We weren’t happy with how we finished,” Brescher said. “But I know we have a good team. We’ll just hit the reset button and try to get on another win streak.”
All three of the Mississippi coaches believe their collective success is a reflection on junior golf in the state. All three feature players who came up through various Mississippi junior programs, including the Rebels’ Trolio of West Point, who made the U.S. Amateur semifinals as a 17-year-old high school player at Oak Hill Academy, and his younger brother Colin.
“I think the success these teams have had is a reflection on Mississippi golf as a whole,” said State’s Smith, whose team includes junior Drew Wilson of Potts Camp and freshman Jackson Cook, another product of the remarkable Oak Hill Academy program that plays out of Old Waverly in West Point.
All three Mississippi coaches also take pride in hosting the Fallen Oak event, which has some unique features, including Jumbotrons behind the ninth and 18th greens that will be showing college football teams during Saturday’s first round. The tournament also includes a Friday pro-am-styled event during which the college golfers will be paired with sponsors and hosts of the tournament.
Besides the three Mississippi teams, the field includes Alabama, Arkansas, Chattanooga, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana State University, South Carolina, Tennessee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Wisconsin. Said USM’s Brescher, “It’s about as close as you’re going to get to a post-season quality field during the fall.”
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