Troy Men’s Golf Opens Season at The Invitational at Kiawah

TROY, Alabama – Coming off an NCAA Regional appearance, the Troy men's golf team opens its 2015-16 season this weekend at The Invitational at The Ocean Course, which will be played at the Kiawah Golf Resort.

Play opens with 36 holes on Friday and wraps up with 18 holes on Saturday; Troy will tee off at 7 a.m. (CDT) Friday on the first hole along with Charleston Southern and Cincinnati.

The Trojans return three key contributors from last year's squad that advanced to the NCAA New Haven Regional and finished the year ranked 59^th in the nation by Golfstat. Two-time First Team All-Sun Belt selection Jared Bettcher leads the group of returnees, while Luke Moser and Clayton Vannoy also return and were key to the Trojans success last year.

"We are excited to get started," head coach Matt Terry said. "This team will definitely have its own character and it's own self-image that will develop as we go on. We're going to be a little bit more explosive with this lineup, but we need to get a couple rounds under us before we can say that for sure."

Bettcher finished last season with a 72.69 stroke average and was fifth in the Sun Belt with a 1.10 score vs. par. The junior from Auburn, Ala., turned in three top-10 rounds and shot a school-record 7-under 65 twice. Bettcher capped an impressive summer at the U.S. Amateur Championship where he missed match play by one stroke.

Moser was Troy's most consistent golfer last year as 87.9 percent of his rounds counted towards the team score. The junior from Waterloo, Ontario, finished the season with a 73.69 stroke average and a pair of top 10 finishes.

Vannoy closed strong for the Trojans last year with a 73.67 stroke average in the spring to go with an overall mark of 73.85. The junior from Pensacola, Fla., finished the year with six rounds under par and three in the 60s.

The Invitational will feature a little different scoring format than normal, as teams will have six golfers on the course with the top four counting towards the team score instead of the traditional five golfers per team.

Joining Bettcher, Vannoy and Moser on the course will be three golfers making their Troy debut. Redshirt juniors Cam Norman and Sean Stone along with freshman Calum Masters will make up the rest of the Troy lineup.

Norman redshirted last season after transferring to Troy following two years at Faulkner State Community College, while Stone sat out last season after transferring to Troy in the spring of 2014 from Indiana. Masters won the Alabama 1A-2A individual state championship as a junior at Providence Christian School in 2014.

"These guys are starting fresh from square one," Terry said. "We've got some experience returning from last year and they understand what we did and how we got it done. We were very solid from start to finish last year at every event with seven top-five finishes. These guys are going to have their own identity. This is a totally new team, new self-image and they have their own set of goals personally with themselves and as a team."

The field will be strong as seven of the 12 teams, including Troy, played in an NCAA Regional last year, including UAB who advanced to the NCAA Championship. Along with Troy, College of Charleston, Georgia State, Charleston Southern, NC State, UAB and Georgia Southern all advanced to NCAA postseason play. Francis Marion, Lamar, Kentucky, Cincinnati and Akron make up the rest of the field.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Jared Bettcher

Calum Masters

Luke Moser

Cam Norman

Sean Stone

Clayton Vannoy