After a solid fall season, the BGSU men’s golf team will begin its spring season Monday, traveling to Charleston, S.C. for the CSU Spring Kick-Off Classic.
This year’s Falcon team is led by a trio of seniors: Heath Ziglar, Tommy Lopez and Adam Cordes. Half of this year’s team is made up out of state players from Florida and Texas and Canadians from Ontario and Ottawa. These players, and others from Ohio combine to make up the 10-player team. Some of the other names of note are Brad Dearsman, Dan McIntyre and Bowling Green-native Michael Bibler.
“The team’s collectiveness is our strength,” said BG coach Garry Winger. “They all get along, help each other out, and keep each other’s interest at heart. We are all in it for the same reason and everyone is all about the team. We have a great bunch of guys that really creates a nice bond between us all.”
Seniors Ziglar and Lopez are expected to lead the team after posting excellent fall seasons.
“Heath had an outstanding fall season, averaging 71.7 in 15 rounds,” Winger said. “He finished third, fourth and fifth in different tournaments last fall. Also, Tommy Lopez finished fifth at the Mid-American Conference Championships last year.”
The team has some experience in the Charleston tournament. A few of the players were around two years ago when the team finished second overall.
“You never know year to year, though, which teams are going to come down and be in this tournament,” Winger said. “There’s usually about 12-15 teams, mostly from the south but there’s no reason we can’t be competitive here.”
But, with the weather the way it is up here in the northern part of the county, teams do not get to play as much as they would if they lived down south. Whether that will be a factor come Monday is unknown at this point, but the falcons haven’t played a round together since the end of the fall season on Nov. 5.
The team has been practicing three times a week in the Perry Field house and once the weather breaks, they will be able to hit balls outside at the Maumee Sportsmall.
“The weather here is probably the weakness for our team,” Winger said. “We’re never able to play outside during these months and we battle the weather every spring. All we can do is just hope and pray for good weather come April.”
The keys to being competitive, according to Winger, are to have Ziglar play well each round out and have the fourth and fifth golfers score well.
One thing to keep an eye on through the year is Ziglar’s pursuit of school records.
“Heath is having a year that could break a lot of records that have been around forever here,” Winger said. “Today’s Heath is much different from the one I met four years ago when he came in here.”
