Men’s Golf Heads to Sun Belt Championship

TROY, Alabama – After earning an at-large berth to the NCAA Regionals last season, the Troy men's golf team heads to the Raven Golf Course for the Sun Belt Championship this weekend looking for the league's automatic berth to NCAA postseason play.

The Sun Belt Championship switches to a new format this year with teams playing three rounds of stroke play before the top four teams move to match play to decide the title. Teams play 18 holes of stroke play on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with both the semifinals and finals of match play set for Wednesday.

The course will be familiar to the Trojans, and nine of the other Sun Belt teams, as Troy hosted the Sun Belt Preview back in the fall with every league team except Appalachian State. Troy won the event by 12 shots over Georgia Southern as a trio of Trojans finished in the top seven.

"It gives the guys some confidence going down there, but it has been five or six months since we won that tournament," Troy head coach Matt Terry said. "We have to continue to be aggressive and be ourselves. It's really easy to go down there and get caught up in trying to get to Wednesday, but we have got take care of the practice round and try and be the low team each day."

Luke Moser, who leads the Trojans with a 73.04 stroke average, shot 7-under in the Sun Belt Preview en route to finishing in second place individually. Jared Bettcher was 4-under to place sixth, while Clayton Vannoy tied for seventh at 1-under.

Freshman Calum Masters, who ranks fifth overall in stroke average for the Trojans, has turned in the best spring of any golfer on the team. Masters has posted a 72.92 average through four spring events, which is 4.08 strokes lower than his fall mark.

Vannoy has also played well in the spring with a 73.00 average over 12 rounds, while posting the best opening round average of the year as he enters the Sun Belt Championship with a 73.11 mark the first time through the course.

"They are going to have to take it on themselves, nobody is going to give them that title," Terry said. "We are getting absolutely zero respect because we have zero players that have been conference player of the month. That tells me that nobody in our conference respects us and I am cool with that, that's fine. I have no issue with any of that because our players will take care of earning respect on their own."

Masters had a valid argument for the most recent award as he posted a 71.11 stroke average with three top-10 finishes in Troy's final three tournaments of the year. He also went 2-1 against the No. 4 player in the country during that stretch.

Troy's top player in the fall, Bettcher, enters the Sun Belt Championship with a 73.73 stroke average on the season. He placed third at last year's Sun Belt Championship event and has posted a 70.00 average (-1) over six career rounds at the Raven.

Cam Norman is third on the team with seven rounds under par this year and ranks fourth overall with a 74.42 stroke average. He fired a round of 1-under in the second round of the Sun Belt Preview and has been exceptionally strong in opening rounds.

"We've had five different guys who have been our number one and led us in a tournament this year and that is huge," Terry said. "When you can go out each day and get a low round from any one of your players, it takes the pressure off to feel like you have to play perfect golf."

Troy, Georgia State and Georgia Southern enter as the top-ranked teams in the Sun Belt Championship and will take the course together beginning at 8:15 a.m.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Jared Bettcher

Calum Masters

Luke Moser

Cam Norman

Clayton Vannoy