Wildcats tee off Monday to start spring season

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PATTERSON, La. – The ACU Wildcats kick off their spring championship season Monday at the Atchafalaya Intercollegiate golf tournament facing a field that includes four Southland Conference foes.

The Wildcats will be joined by 12 other teams – including Southland Conference foes Central Arkansas, Incarnate Word, New Orleans and Nicholls – in the 36-hole tournament that will consist of 36 holes Monday and 18 more Tuesday. The tournament will be played at The Atchafalaya at Idlewild, a lengthy, 7,533-yard, par-72 track in southwestern Louisiana.

Other teams in the field are Louisiana-Monroe, Mobile (Ala.), Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota State, North Dakota, South Dakota, UT Rio Grande Valley and Wichita State.

ACU head coach Tom Shaw – who directed his team to a fifth-place finish at the Southland Conference championship tournament last season in his first year as the Wildcats' leader – said his five-player lineup for the tournament is still being determined.

The Wildcats will also take a few individual medalists to the first tournament of the spring season.

Beatty enters his first spring season as a Wildcat coming off three top-15 finishes (one top-10) in the fall, while Glanton had two top-30 finishes in the fall in his first season at ACU. Vaughn had two top-20 finishes in the fall (one top-15) and had a scoring average of 74.1 in four tournaments. Carpenter – who missed the entire 2014-15 season because of recurring back problems – returns this spring after playing in three tournaments in the fall.

"We're much more competitive as a team than we were at this point last year," Shaw said. "To be able to finish fifth at the conference tournament last year was great, and we want to be able to do better than that this year. I believe we're closing the gap on the top teams in the conference, and we'll get a chance to see some of those teams (Sam Houston State, McNeese State, Southeastern Louisiana and Lamar) early on in a couple of other tournaments."

Shaw said he feels good about the top four in his lineup, but that he'll be searching for consistency in players 5-7 in the lineup.

"We had three players in the fall who weren't playing last spring (Beatty, Glanton and Carpenter), so with those guys in the lineup and Vaughn, they've really set themselves apart," Shaw said. "The biggest issue we face right now is finding out who those guys will be who will push those top four."

After the opening tournament of the spring season, the Wildcats are right back it the next week (Feb. 29-March 1) at the Houston Baptist Spring Invitational and then again two weeks alter (March 15-17) at the Oral Roberts / Stephen F. Austin Invitational in Las Colinas.

ACU is then in Little Rock, Ark., March 28-29 for the Arkansas-Little Rock First Tee Classic, followed by a trip to Bastrop April 11-12 for the Jim West Intercollegiate. The Wildcats will then wrap up their season at the Southland Conference championship tournament, which will be played April 18-20 at Stonebridge Ranch Country Club in McKinney.

Schedule

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Players Mentioned

Ryan Beatty

Luke Carpenter

Garrett Glanton

Dillon Vaughn