Men’s golf faces challenges at launch of new season

After just one tournament, the men’s golf team has their work cut out for them. Due to an injury and one player going pro, the Georgia State men’s team has lost two of their best players. Coach Joe Inman is hopeful that the team can compensate for these losses by the conference tournament in mid-April.

Allen John, a freshman last season who was ranked among the top 100, went pro and is now in England. John led the team with a stroke average of 72.4 during the 2008-09 season.

Tobias Rosendahl has juvenile arthritis and it has gotten progressively worse to the point where he can no longer compete. Rosendahl ended the 2008-09 season third on the team with a scoring average of 73.3 but he took off this season, his senior year, to rest his back. The team also suffered another major loss when Tim Freund graduated.

Senior Tom Sherreard will lead the team as they compensate for the other two players. Sherreard ended the 2008-09 season second best on the team with a scoring average of 72.9. He tied for 77th at the British Amateur, missing the ability to advance to match play by one stroke after shooting rounds of 75 and 73, according to his player biography on the sports website. Sherreard is consistently one of the lowest scorers in every tournament.
“We’re struggling right now because we lost two of our three best players, we weren’t as strong in those positions, so our performance has dropped-off,” Inman said.

A typical team has seven, eight or nine players, with five going to tournaments. There are not any alternates because only so many people try out for the team. Although the team lost some key players, Coach Inman commented that the other players are stepping up. Alex Castro and Jared Cagle are two of the names he mentioned. Castro is a junior and Cagle is a redshirted sophomore.

“Castro is doing well and Cagle struggled a bit but has been practicing hard,” Inman said.
 
The team just finished their first tournament, the JU Invitational, which was held at TPC Sawgrass - The Player’s Club - in Ponte Verda Beach, FL.  At the beginning of March, the team will travel to University of North Carolina: Wilmington to compete against roughly 15 teams in the Landfall Invitational before heading to Tallahassee and Augusta before the CAA Championships April 16-18 in Hot Springs, VA. This tournament will end the season and is very important. Last season the men’s golf team ended their last season 60th in the country, just missing the playoffs.
 

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