The MSU men’s golf team’s home schedule is wholly contained in this weekend.
Yep. That’s it. One home tournament for the whole season.
It may not sound like much fun to perpetually be on the road - playing golf around the Midwest and beyond - but it’s business as usual for the Spartans.
That’s what makes this weekend so special.
MSU hosts the 2002 Bruce Fossum/Taylor Made Invitational on Saturday and Sunday.
The tournament is MSU’s last event of the regular-season before heading into the Big Ten Championship on May 3-5 in Iowa.
And with MSU’s own Forest Akers West Golf Course as this weekend’s destination, the Spartans can sleep in their own beds, eat their own food and not have to skip classes the week before finals.
“I think it is the greatest home-court advantage you can have in sports,” MSU head coach Mark Hankins said. “We talk about respecting our home course because it is a hard golf course. I don’t care if you play this course 100 times or one time, you still have to be cautious of the difficulty.”
The Spartans are ranked No. 29 in this week’s Golfweek national rankings and are No. 4 in the Midwestern district. They seem to be on pace for their first NCAA Central Regional bid since 1994 and Hankins is garnering a lot of the credit for MSU’s turnaround.
“He’s done a fantastic job with our team,” said sophomore J.J. Beckstrom, who tied for second at the Robert Kepler Intercollegiate earlier this month.
“He’s great with the swing, he’s given us the right attitude and mind-set going into tournaments.
“He’s great with the physical part of the game and the mental part.”
Considering the top seven teams in MSU’s district will be at the Fossum, this weekend will be another good measuring stick as the Spartans creep up on the nation’s elite. Big Ten powers Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio State and national force Toledo are all part of the 15-team field.
Still, MSU is anything but a long shot. Hankins is preaching “depth” as MSU’s strong suit this year. Juniors Eric Jorgensen and John Koskinen are the Spartans’ stars, but Beckstrom and senior co-captain Nathan Clark have started to pull more weight - particularly this spring.
“It’s a lot easier to cut strokes on the back end of your team than it is to have your No. 1 man shoot 68 instead of 69 or something,” Hankins said. “In previous years, our fourth man would average 76 or 77. This year, our fourth man is averaging around 74, so you’re looking at everyone being within two shots of par.
“I think you’ve seen four good players turn into four really, really good players this year. We’ve just kind of gotten better and better as the season’s gone along.”
Spartan fans can see the improvements for themselves this weekend. The team said it would like to see big galleries filling Forest Akers on Saturday and Sunday - although the unseasonable weather being forecasted could keep the droves away.
MSU golf fans are probably really itching for an event themselves, seeing as the women’s team’s only home event - the Mary Fossum Invitational - was canceled in September.
Knowing that, Koskinen’s top concern is putting on a good show for the home crowd this weekend.
“We all have pretty big expectations of what should happen, we’re playing pretty well as a team and coming together,” said Koskinen, who, along with Jorgensen is ranked in the top 10 individually in the district. “Nothing less than a victory is going to be suitable.”
Beckstrom has equally lofty goals for the weekend.
“I don’t think we’re going to be happy unless we win our home tournament because it’s what we look forward to the whole year,” Beckstrom said. “A win here would secure our regional bid, so I think winning is the only option this weekend.”
