🏌️♂️ Jayhawks Set for Big 12 Match Play Championship
HOCKLEY, Texas – The ninth-ranked Kansas Men’s Golf Team will head to Houston Oaks Golf Course for the Big 12 Match Play Championship beginning Monday in an event that features five of the top 11 ranked teams in the country.
The three-day tournament includes all 10 conference teams broken into two groups. The Jayhawks are grouped with Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas State and West Virginia. Kansas will open the tournament with Texas Tech on Monday morning and face Oklahoma and West Virginia on Tuesday and Kansas State on Wednesday morning. The Jayhawks will then be paired with a team from the other group for the final match Wednesday afternoon.
The loaded field will have some of the highest-ranked teams in the country on display. Kansas entered the Top 10 of the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings last week at No. 9. The Sooners are ranked No. 1, while Texas Tech is No. 11. On the other side of the bracket, Oklahoma State is ranked No. 5 and Texas is one spot ahead of the Jayhawks at No. 8.
Each team will travel a seven-man lineup and play six matches against their opponent. Coach Jamie Bermel is going with a travel lineup of seniors Harry Hillier, Ben Sigel and Callum Bruce, sophomores Luke Kluver, Davis Cooper and Hank Lierz and freshman Wolfgang Glawe.
“The match play event is quite different than stroke play,” Bermel said. “It’s six individual matches against each team in our pool. We probably play more aggressive than stroke play, but it is still about not wasting any strokes or holes.
“The format typically comes down to one to two matches against our opponents, and we need to convert the close matches.”
The Jayhawks enter the tournament red-hot coming off back-to-back wins. Kansas earned co-championship honors with Notre Dame at the Gopher Invitational in Minnesota, before winning the Windon Memorial in Chicago outright two weeks later.
Not only did Kansas earn team titles in those tournaments, the Jayhawks had individuals win as well. At the Gopher Invitational, Kluver won the tournament at -10, while Cooper earned the victory at the Windon at -9.
“I think the guys are playing with a lot of confidence right now, but we still need to play well,” Bermel said. “This event is a lot of fun, and we are looking forward to the challenge, and playing against a lot of good teams.”
Live stats for the tournament are available through Golfstat here.
