COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Men's Golf tees up its 2019-20 season in Verona, New York, this weekend (Sunday Sept. 1 – Monday Sept. 2) as the Tigers host the Turning Stone-Tiger Intercollegiate at Turning Stone Resort's Kaluhyat Course (6,882 yards, par-72). Aiming to secure the program's eighth consecutive Turning Stone championship, the Black & Gold is seeking to deliver another strong showing in Verona to jumpstart their fall campaign. A Mizzou victory this weekend would give head coach Mark Leroux his 49th career tournament win and his fifth since Sept. 4, 2017.
Fourteen teams are vying for the Turning Stone title at this year's competition, including Binghamton, Boston College, Canisius, Cleveland State, Delaware, Mount St. Mary's, Niagara, North Carolina, Northern Kentucky, Sacred Heart, Towson, Valparaiso and Youngstown State. The Tar Heels capped off last season with a 19th-place finish at the 2019 NCAA Men's Golf Championship and are currently ranked 23rd in the latest GCAA poll.
Leroux's squad claimed its seventh consecutive Turning Stone title last September when the Tigers shot 16-under par (848: 278-282-288), outpacing second-place North Dakota State by 29 strokes. Four of the five golfers in Mizzou's competitive lineup finished in the top 20 individually, including three 2019-20 returners: seniors Rory Franssen (Inverness, Scotland) and Ricky Sanders (The Hague, Netherlands), and junior Jack Parker (Columbia, Mo.).
Mizzou looks to continue its winning ways at Kaluhyat Course this weekend with Sanders leading the way as the top golfer in the Tigers' lineup. The senior turned in an impressive showing in his Black & Gold debut at last year's Turning Stone, in which he finished even-par to tie for eighth overall. Sanders was Mizzou's top performer at the 2019 SEC Championships last spring, shooting a 3-over 213 on the Par 70 course as he tied for 21st place in Sea Island, Georgia.
Franssen follows Sanders in the second slot for Mizzou. Coming off a red-hot 2018-19 season in which he carded a career-best 15 rounds under par, Franssen was a top-two finisher in the Tigers' lineup six times as a junior. The former SEC Golfer of the Week earned a 10th-place finish at last season's Turning Stone event.
Freshman Ross Steelman (Columbia, Mo.) will make his NCAA Division I premiere as the No. 3 golfer in Leroux's lineup. As a junior at Rock Bridge High School, the hometown hero captured the individual 2018 Missouri Class 4 state championship with an 8-under par 136 for the tournament. His performance steered Rock Bridge to a team state title, the school's first since 2015.
Competing in his third Turning Stone Intercollegiate, Parker holds down the fourth spot for the Tigers. The Columbia native has shot even-par or better in three of the six total rounds within his pair of Turning Stone appearances, nabbing top-20 finishes in each of the past two tournaments at Kaluhyat Course. Last year's event marked the best finish of his sophomore season (T-17).
Newcomer Viktor Einarsson (Reykjavik, Iceland) will also make his collegiate debut in Verona this weekend, competing as an unattached individual for the Tigers. Einarsson, a member of the Icelandic national squad since the age of 13, led his country's team to a third-place at the 2018 European Boys Team Championship in Hungary.
Sophomore Tommy Boone (Plano, Tex.) will make his first career Turning Stone appearance this weekend. Boone's freshman campaign was highlighted by a career-best 5-under 67 in a stellar final round at the Hootie at Bulls Bay last spring.
Yu-Ta Tsai (Tapei, Taiwan) rounds out the trio of freshmen to make their collegiate debuts this weekend in Verona. Tsai's prep career was highlighted by a Top-10 finish at the IMG Academy Junior World Championship in 2018. He finished in the Top-15 in all three of his AJGA starts, including a top-three finish at the AJGA Junior at Riverwatch event.
The remainder of Mizzou's competitive lineup will be finalized at a later time.
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