Feb. 11, 2018
Notre Dame, Ind. – After a three-and-a-half month hiatus from competition, the Notre Dame men’s golf team returns to the links on Monday, Feb. 12, to kick off its spring season in Mobile, Alabama, as part of the 2018 Mobile Sports Authority Intercollegiate.
The two-day tournament will begin with a 9:30 a.m. ET shotgun start on Monday, with two rounds being played on the opening day. Furthermore, the tournament will be played at the par-72 7,212-yard Magnolia Grove Falls Golf Course.
THE FIELD
The tournament field consists of 16 teams: Abilene Christian, Central Arkansas, Florida State, Illinois State, Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, Louisiana, Louisiana Tech, Nicholls, Notre Dame, Oral Roberts, Richmond, Samford, South Alabama, Southern Miss and Western Kentucky.
THE ROAD HERE
The fall 2017 campaign marked a season of change for the Irish, as first-year head coach John Handrigan began to instill his philosophy and new culture into the program. As a result, Notre Dame displayed tremendous growth, finishing in the top-four in four of the five fall tournaments, including a first place showing at its home tournament – the Fighting Irish Classic.
Furthermore, the Irish shot -14 at the Badger Invitational, -18 at the Fighting Irish Classic and an impressive -22 at the Quail Valley Intercollegiate. All three team scores respectively marked the program’s top-three scores for a 54-hole tournament, with the 22-under par tying the all-time mark.
QUOTABLES
“The biggest thing is feeding off of what we did in the fall,” Notre Dame head coach John Handrigan stated. “We set a new work culture and a new work ethic that we will build off of this spring.”
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Josh Bates joined Fighting Irish Media as associate athletics communications director in July of 2017, serving as the women’s basketball and men’s golf contact. Bates earned both his bachelor’s (2011) and master’s (2014) degree in sports management from the University of Illinois. He also worked as a grad assistant at Illinois from 2012-14 and worked full-time at Tulane University from 2014-17.