The Tech golf team returns four players from a lineup that made the NCAA regionals last season and has high expectations for the spring campaign
The Virginia Tech golf team opened its 2014 spring season in Puerto Rico, and on a couple of occasions during the three-day event, rain fell while they were out on the course.
Normally, rain affects golfers in a variety of ways. But the Hokies simply shrugged it off, and coach Jay Hardwick had the explanation as to why.
“It was the first time they had been out when something solid wasn’t falling down on them,” Hardwick joked.
Large quantities of snow and freezing rain totally wreaked havoc on the Hokies’ pre-spring practice schedule, as they prepared for the spring-opening Puerto Rico Classic in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. The foul weather all but confined Tech’s practices to the Hokies’ practice facility over at the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech.
Yet in a field that featured five of the top 10 teams in the nation as ranked by Golfstat, the Hokies came in fifth – a respectable showing for a team that played all of just two or three practice rounds before leaving for San Juan on Feb. 20. Tech finished at 9-under par on the River Course at the Rio Mar Beach Resort and Spa.
“I thought we did okay,” Hardwick said. “It was a little bit of the unknown for us. This was the least we had ever played. We’d only played two or three rounds of golf. We’ve hit a lot of balls. The kids have been dedicated in zero degree temperatures. We’ve just hit into the snow banks.
“The thing we were rusty in was our short game. That was what we hadn’t been able to do [at Tech’s practice facility]. We got there [Puerto Rico] and got an extra day [of practice], and I couldn’t get the kids off the range. I was proud of them. They got better every round. In that kind of field, considering we were one of the few teams that hadn’t played in a tournament already and that we hadn’t played any golf, I thought it was a good showing, and it was a confidence boost.”
Hardwick hopes the performance was just the opening tee shot for a team with lofty expectations this spring.
The Hokies return four players from a program that received its seventh consecutive NCAA regional bid and is ranked 11th nationally by Golfstat and 18th by Golfweek in both publications’ team rankings as of March 4. Unfortunately, last season ended on a sour note, as Tech got sent to Pullman, Wash., one of the more remote spots in college athletics, for its regional, and the Hokies finished in a tie for 10th place, failing to advance to the NCAA Championship. But the program only lost Mikey Moyers off the squad, thus fueling the talk of a big 2014.
“We’ve been consistent with our top four, but it’s important to have all five guys if you’re going to make a run at the national championship,” Hardwick said. “We certainly think we can do that. You’ve got to get there first. You’ve got to get through the regionals and get to match play. So we just take it a tournament at a time, but I do have high expectations because four of these kids played in the NCAA tournament last year and three of them have played in our [NCAA] lineup the past two years. Bryce [Chalkley] has played three. We have a lot of experience, with a senior, two juniors and a sophomore.”
Scott Vincent, a junior from Harare, Zimbabwe, headlines the group, while Chalkley, a senior from Richmond, Va., serves as the team captain.
Vincent entered spring play ranked as the No. 17 player in the nation according to Golfweek and the No. 3 player in the ACC. He won three tournaments in the fall – the Golfweek Conference Challenge held in Burlington, Iowa; the VCU Shootout held in Manakin-Sabot, Va.; and the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate held in Johnson City, Tenn. He shot an average of 69.7 this fall, and he currently ranks first in all-time scoring at Tech with a 72.07 average.
Last year, Vincent led the Hokies in scoring with a 71.66 stroke average. He finished in the top 20 in nine of 11 events, including five top-five finishes and a seventh-place finish at the ACC Championship. He missed one event to compete for his native Zimbabwe in the World Amateur Team Championship held in Antalya, Turkey. He led Zimbabwe to a 17th-place finish, and he finished 32nd individually.
“He really doesn’t have a weakness,” Hardwick said of the All-ACC performer. “He’s worried about his swing path and things of that nature, but 12 inches before the golf ball and 12 inches after the golf ball is where it matters. He does a great job of repeating [his swing].
“He’s got some shots he’s working on. Our goal isn’t to make him a better player. Our goal is to make him a more complete player, and that will do it. He’s a pretty complete player now. If there’s a weakness, it’s just making sure he never doubts himself. When he gets it going, I’ve never had a player who is as streaky as he is and can make as many birdies as he can.”
Chalkley, the lone senior in the lineup, will challenge Vincent as the Hokies’ top golfer this spring. Chalkley fared well at the NCAA regional last May, finishing 11th in the individual race, and this fall, he finished in the top five on three occasions, including a runner-up finish to Vincent at the VCU Shootout.
Chalkley is ranked 44th nationally according to Golfweek.
“He reminds me of Johnson Wagner,” Hardwick said. “He wasn’t a highly ranked player coming in, but we certainly wanted him. He was a role player the first year, but he’s worked on the things he’s needed to work on, and he’s gotten better at it. He’s such a good student that it allows him to spend more time working on his game, and he’s been fortunate to play a good summer schedule.
“He’s just gotten better and better every year. He’s pushed Scott. He’d have won a tournament this year if it hadn’t been for Scott. His career has progressed a lot like Johnson’s.”
Trevor Cone and Maclain Huge round out the quartet that returns off last year’s NCAA regional team.
Cone, a junior from Concord, N.C., got his spring started on a good note, shooting 4-under-par and tying Vincent for 16th place individually at the Puerto Rico Classic. He was a tad up and down last season, claiming 10th at the ACC Championship and yet tying for 64th place (with Vincent) at the NCAA regional in Pullman. But Cone played well this fall, with five top-20 finishes, including two top-10s, and he carried it over to Puerto Rico, where he tied Chalkley for the team’s low round – a 67 in the second round.
Cone is ranked No. 92 nationally according to Golfweek, giving Tech three golfers in the top 100.
“Trevor is probably the most naturally talented player I’ve ever had,” Hardwick said. “He picks up a golf club and makes a swing, and coaches go ‘Wow, how easy and how good is that?’
“Trevor likes to do his thing. He gets bored practicing. We have to give him games and things to do. One day, Coach [Brian] Sharp [Tech’s assistant] told him to shoot for a flag that was about 180 yards away, and he told Trevor that if he hit it, he’d let him out of practice 15 minutes earlier. It didn’t take Trevor 15 minutes to hit it. Guys might go a career and not do that.
“He’s so talented, and it’s so natural for him. We have to do things differently with him. But players are like that. He can shoot some numbers. He’s got the type of golf swing that conditions don’t bother him. He’s just a natural player.”
Huge, a sophomore from Lovettesville, Va., enjoyed a solid season as a freshman a year ago, particularly as the season went along. He claimed 10th place at the ACC Championship and tied for 11th at the NCAA regional in Pullman. This fall, he recorded two top-20 finishes, including a 13th-place finish at the Golfweek Conference Challenge. In Puerto Rico, he was 29th.
“He’s still got to manage the golf course a little better,” Hardwick said. “He made a couple of mistakes in Puerto Rico. He’s so long that he doesn’t know his strength at times. It’s a great asset, but it still has to be saddled. He came into his own last year. He started maturing like we wanted him to, and he played well this fall. He’s got a world of talent. He’s going to get better and better.”
Hardwick’s biggest concern is finding that fifth guy, and the list of candidates includes junior Miles Curley and freshmen Drew Johnson, Ryan Mondy and Joey Lane. Curley, though, broke a finger while working out at Tech’s Olympic sports strength and conditioning center shortly before the Puerto Rico Classic and will be out for several weeks.
Johnson, from Oak Ridge, N.C., got the nod in Puerto Rico and got better each round, shooting 78, 76 and 73 to finish 11-over-par. The other three played at least six rounds this fall, giving them needed experience.
“We usually qualify for one spot, and then Coach Sharp and I base it [the selection of the fifth player] on the type of course we’ll be playing, how they’re hitting it, that type of thing,” Hardwick said. “But they always have a chance to play themselves in the lineup early, and if they play well, they can stay.
“We didn’t have a qualifying round for Puerto Rico because of the weather, so we based it off of the fall and the course. The course was tighter and demanded a better short game, and Drew isn’t as long as the other guys, but he’s straighter, so that course fit his game better. It’s different for every course we go to. But our kids always have a chance to play.”
Hardwick hopes to have his fifth guy decided by the time the Hokies play in the ACC Championship held April 25-27 in Badin Lake, N.C. Tech, though, will only play in three more tournaments before the conference tournament starts. Playing in the Golfweek Conference Challenge in the fall affected the Hokies’ normal spring slate, leaving them without a tournament the weekend before the conference tournament.
“I thought it was important to represent the conference in the Golfweek Challenge because they took the top 15 golf conferences, and we got to represent the ACC,” Hardwick said. “Right now, we play Augusta [the Augusta State Invitational] in the first week of April, and we don’t play again until the ACC Championship. I’ve got a day available and I’d love to have a rainout [to get another day] because we’ve got a couple of [two-day] tournaments that would let us in [the weekend before the ACC Championships]. We’ve always done that, and the only year we didn’t, we didn’t play well. It just keeps you sharp.
“Hopefully, our guys are dedicated enough, and we’ll practice enough, but there’s nothing like playing competitively. So hopefully, it’ll [the tournament before the ACC Championship] happen for us, but if not, we’ll do some things. We might go to Primland [in Meadows of Dan, Va.] and play. They’re going to have a college tournament there next year.”
Tech figures to be in the mix at the 12-team ACC Championship. Only two ACC teams, Georgia Tech and Virginia, were ranked ahead of the Hokies at press time, though Florida State and Clemson were close behind in both polls.
But the Hokies have even higher goals. Time always will tell, but this experienced team may just be the one to accomplish them.The Virginia Tech golf team opened its 2014 spring season in Puerto Rico, and on a couple of occasions during the three-day event, rain fell while they were out on the course.
Normally, rain affects golfers in a variety of ways. But the Hokies simply shrugged it off, and coach Jay Hardwick had the explanation as to why.
“It was the first time they had been out when something solid wasn’t falling down on them,” Hardwick joked.
Large quantities of snow and freezing rain totally wreaked havoc on the Hokies’ pre-spring practice schedule, as they prepared for the spring-opening Puerto Rico Classic in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. The foul weather all but confined Tech’s practices to the Hokies’ practice facility over at the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech.
Yet in a field that featured five of the top 10 teams in the nation as ranked by Golfstat, the Hokies came in fifth – a respectable showing for a team that played all of just two or three practice rounds before leaving for San Juan on Feb. 20. Tech finished at 9-under par on the River Course at the Rio Mar Beach Resort and Spa.
“I thought we did okay,” Hardwick said. “It was a little bit of the unknown for us. This was the least we had ever played. We’d only played two or three rounds of golf. We’ve hit a lot of balls. The kids have been dedicated in zero degree temperatures. We’ve just hit into the snow banks.
“The thing we were rusty in was our short game. That was what we hadn’t been able to do [at Tech’s practice facility]. We got there [Puerto Rico] and got an extra day [of practice], and I couldn’t get the kids off the range. I was proud of them. They got better every round. In that kind of field, considering we were one of the few teams that hadn’t played in a tournament already and that we hadn’t played any golf, I thought it was a good showing, and it was a confidence boost.”
Hardwick hopes the performance was just the opening tee shot for a team with lofty expectations this spring.
The Hokies return four players from a program that received its seventh consecutive NCAA regional bid and is ranked 11th nationally by Golfstat and 18th by Golfweek in both publications’ team rankings as of March 4. Unfortunately, last season ended on a sour note, as Tech got sent to Pullman, Wash., one of the more remote spots in college athletics, for its regional, and the Hokies finished in a tie for 10th place, failing to advance to the NCAA Championship. But the program only lost Mikey Moyers off the squad, thus fueling the talk of a big 2014.
“We’ve been consistent with our top four, but it’s important to have all five guys if you’re going to make a run at the national championship,” Hardwick said. “We certainly think we can do that. You’ve got to get there first. You’ve got to get through the regionals and get to match play. So we just take it a tournament at a time, but I do have high expectations because four of these kids played in the NCAA tournament last year and three of them have played in our [NCAA] lineup the past two years. Bryce [Chalkley] has played three. We have a lot of experience, with a senior, two juniors and a sophomore.”
Scott Vincent, a junior from Harare, Zimbabwe, headlines the group, while Chalkley, a senior from Richmond, Va., serves as the team captain.
Vincent entered spring play ranked as the No. 17 player in the nation according to Golfweek and the No. 3 player in the ACC. He won three tournaments in the fall – the Golfweek Conference Challenge held in Burlington, Iowa; the VCU Shootout held in Manakin-Sabot, Va.; and the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate held in Johnson City, Tenn. He shot an average of 69.7 this fall, and he currently ranks first in all-time scoring at Tech with a 72.07 average.
Last year, Vincent led the Hokies in scoring with a 71.66 stroke average. He finished in the top 20 in nine of 11 events, including five top-five finishes and a seventh-place finish at the ACC Championship. He missed one event to compete for his native Zimbabwe in the World Amateur Team Championship held in Antalya, Turkey. He led Zimbabwe to a 17th-place finish, and he finished 32nd individually.
“He really doesn’t have a weakness,” Hardwick said of the All-ACC performer. “He’s worried about his swing path and things of that nature, but 12 inches before the golf ball and 12 inches after the golf ball is where it matters. He does a great job of repeating [his swing].
“He’s got some shots he’s working on. Our goal isn’t to make him a better player. Our goal is to make him a more complete player, and that will do it. He’s a pretty complete player now. If there’s a weakness, it’s just making sure he never doubts himself. When he gets it going, I’ve never had a player who is as streaky as he is and can make as many birdies as he can.”
Chalkley, the lone senior in the lineup, will challenge Vincent as the Hokies’ top golfer this spring. Chalkley fared well at the NCAA regional last May, finishing 11th in the individual race, and this fall, he finished in the top five on three occasions, including a runner-up finish to Vincent at the VCU Shootout.
Chalkley is ranked 44th nationally according to Golfweek.
“He reminds me of Johnson Wagner,” Hardwick said. “He wasn’t a highly ranked player coming in, but we certainly wanted him. He was a role player the first year, but he’s worked on the things he’s needed to work on, and he’s gotten better at it. He’s such a good student that it allows him to spend more time working on his game, and he’s been fortunate to play a good summer schedule.
“He’s just gotten better and better every year. He’s pushed Scott. He’d have won a tournament this year if it hadn’t been for Scott. His career has progressed a lot like Johnson’s.”
Trevor Cone and Maclain Huge round out the quartet that returns off last year’s NCAA regional team.
Cone, a junior from Concord, N.C., got his spring started on a good note, shooting 4-under-par and tying Vincent for 16th place individually at the Puerto Rico Classic. He was a tad up and down last season, claiming 10th at the ACC Championship and yet tying for 64th place (with Vincent) at the NCAA regional in Pullman. But Cone played well this fall, with five top-20 finishes, including two top-10s, and he carried it over to Puerto Rico, where he tied Chalkley for the team’s low round – a 67 in the second round.
Cone is ranked No. 92 nationally according to Golfweek, giving Tech three golfers in the top 100.
“Trevor is probably the most naturally talented player I’ve ever had,” Hardwick said. “He picks up a golf club and makes a swing, and coaches go ‘Wow, how easy and how good is that?’
“Trevor likes to do his thing. He gets bored practicing. We have to give him games and things to do. One day, Coach [Brian] Sharp [Tech’s assistant] told him to shoot for a flag that was about 180 yards away, and he told Trevor that if he hit it, he’d let him out of practice 15 minutes earlier. It didn’t take Trevor 15 minutes to hit it. Guys might go a career and not do that.
“He’s so talented, and it’s so natural for him. We have to do things differently with him. But players are like that. He can shoot some numbers. He’s got the type of golf swing that conditions don’t bother him. He’s just a natural player.”
Huge, a sophomore from Lovettesville, Va., enjoyed a solid season as a freshman a year ago, particularly as the season went along. He claimed 10th place at the ACC Championship and tied for 11th at the NCAA regional in Pullman. This fall, he recorded two top-20 finishes, including a 13th-place finish at the Golfweek Conference Challenge. In Puerto Rico, he was 29th.
“He’s still got to manage the golf course a little better,” Hardwick said. “He made a couple of mistakes in Puerto Rico. He’s so long that he doesn’t know his strength at times. It’s a great asset, but it still has to be saddled. He came into his own last year. He started maturing like we wanted him to, and he played well this fall. He’s got a world of talent. He’s going to get better and better.”
Hardwick’s biggest concern is finding that fifth guy, and the list of candidates includes junior Miles Curley and freshmen Drew Johnson, Ryan Mondy and Joey Lane. Curley, though, broke a finger while working out at Tech’s Olympic sports strength and conditioning center shortly before the Puerto Rico Classic and will be out for several weeks.
Johnson, from Oak Ridge, N.C., got the nod in Puerto Rico and got better each round, shooting 78, 76 and 73 to finish 11-over-par. The other three played at least six rounds this fall, giving them needed experience.
“We usually qualify for one spot, and then Coach Sharp and I base it [the selection of the fifth player] on the type of course we’ll be playing, how they’re hitting it, that type of thing,” Hardwick said. “But they always have a chance to play themselves in the lineup early, and if they play well, they can stay.
“We didn’t have a qualifying round for Puerto Rico because of the weather, so we based it off of the fall and the course. The course was tighter and demanded a better short game, and Drew isn’t as long as the other guys, but he’s straighter, so that course fit his game better. It’s different for every course we go to. But our kids always have a chance to play.”
Hardwick hopes to have his fifth guy decided by the time the Hokies play in the ACC Championship held April 25-27 in Badin Lake, N.C. Tech, though, will only play in three more tournaments before the conference tournament starts. Playing in the Golfweek Conference Challenge in the fall affected the Hokies’ normal spring slate, leaving them without a tournament the weekend before the conference tournament.
“I thought it was important to represent the conference in the Golfweek Challenge because they took the top 15 golf conferences, and we got to represent the ACC,” Hardwick said. “Right now, we play Augusta [the Augusta State Invitational] in the first week of April, and we don’t play again until the ACC Championship. I’ve got a day available and I’d love to have a rainout [to get another day] because we’ve got a couple of [two-day] tournaments that would let us in [the weekend before the ACC Championships]. We’ve always done that, and the only year we didn’t, we didn’t play well. It just keeps you sharp.
“Hopefully, our guys are dedicated enough, and we’ll practice enough, but there’s nothing like playing competitively. So hopefully, it’ll [the tournament before the ACC Championship] happen for us, but if not, we’ll do some things. We might go to Primland [in Meadows of Dan, Va.] and play. They’re going to have a college tournament there next year.”
Tech figures to be in the mix at the 12-team ACC Championship. Only two ACC teams, Georgia Tech and Virginia, were ranked ahead of the Hokies at press time, though Florida State and Clemson were close behind in both polls.
But the Hokies have even higher goals. Time always will tell, but this experienced team may just be the one to accomplish them.
