North Texas Daily

North Texas has emerged as one of the favorites entering the Conference USA Championships which begins Sunday and goes through Wednesday.

The championship is at the Par 72 Texarkana Country Club in Texarkana, Arkansas. North Texas enters the tournament as the second highest ranked team from golfstats.com at No. 60. Second only to University of Alabama-Birmingham who is ranked No. 38, also joined by three other top 100 ranked teams.

The champion of the C-USA tournament will receive automatic berth to the NCAA regionals, and the Mean Green are confident they can come out on top.

“We are going into the Conference USA tournament with the mindset to win,” head coach Brad Stracke said. “I feel like the guys are confident in each other and know they are prepared to play at Texarkana Country Club.”

With the Mean Green’s improvement in the rankings, the competition they have faced as of late has also improved in terms of rankings. In their final tournament before the C-USA Championships, North Texas tied for eighth at the Aggie Invitational in a loaded field of ranked teams.

In the tournament before that, the Mean Green found themselves surrounded by highly ranked teams again in the Hayt, resulting in an 11th place finish out of a number of teams due to a strong under-par finish from juniors Ian Synman and Thomas Rosemueller.

These two juniors have been leaders of the team throughout the season both on the course and off of it. They lead the team in average shots per round of players who participated in all four tournaments.

“I’m very confident going into the conference tournament,” Rosenmuller said. “We’ve been playing really well, and I think our team is going to do great this week. We’ve been preparing well. Everyone is on track, so I think we can show up with a lot of confidence and ready to golf.”

Nothing but this tournament has been on the mind of North Texas over the past month, and the hope is all of the preparation translates to a C-USA Championship.

“We’ve been practicing out at some courses that have some harsher conditions than Texarkana, preparing for just how the golf course is going to play, so I think we have an advantage practicing out at these courses over the other teams,” Rosemueller said. “My game is getting a lot better, and I’ve been getting better in a lot of areas where I needed to. My short game is really good, my putting is really good and I’m hitting the ball really well. Giving me the confidence that I can have a really good result individually at Texarkana Country Club.”

Mentally, confidence has been the primary focus for the team heading into this tournament.

The expectations for the conference tournament are high, and there is a confidence the Mean Green will meet expectations. The course promises to have tough conditions over the four days, but the Mean Green feel so good going in that the course is not a concern for them.

“Honestly I’m very confident,” freshman Vitek Novak said. “I feel my game getting better, and I’m finally to the point where I’m tapped in, and I’m feeling very confident going into conference. We deserve it. We’ve been working hard. Coach and everyone has been preparing us very well to get us to the highest level possible. I think we are in a good spot and need to take advantage of it.”

The Mean Green have been challenged by high ranking teams throughout the season, and this will be one of the few tournaments where they are one of the favorites going in. While it’s a different mindset, the team is oozing with confidence and can not wait to use it to their advantage.

Stracke as well has high expectations in his team on Sunday, and he hopes to advance to the regional tournament.

“I know the guys are looking forward to playing in the conference championship,” Stracke said. “This year’s team is complete from top to bottom, so our confidence is very high.”

In a year where multiple North Texas sports brought championship hardware to Denton, men’s golf hopes to be the next team to do so.

“I’ll be very confident going into conference, and we all believe we can go there and steal it,” Novak said. “All of the guys and myself are confident going in. I hope we can come back with a big smile on our faces because we deserve it.”

Featured image: University of North Texas Mean Green Men’s Golf at Four Seasons golf course during the Spring Break Challenge. 2018 (Photo Rick Yeatts Photography/Colin Mitchell)