Tee Time

The name of the first Georgia Southern Eagle to strike a ball in intercollegiate golf competition is lost to history, but 50 years ago his drive sent one of the nationÕs most successful programs soaring.

The University’s first golf team was formed in 1961 with George Cook as its coach, and it played as a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) through 1967. In 1968, the program joined the NCAA and spent four seasons, 1968-71, in the College Division (now Division II) where they enjoyed considerable success. Eagle golfers finished second in the nation in 1970 and eighth in 1971.

In the fall of that year, all Georgia Southern teams made the jump to Division I. Today, there are 303 NCAA Division I colleges fielding menÕs golf programs and the Eagles are a perennial contender for postseason play. The team capped its 2009-10 season with its 19th overall NCAA Championship appearance and a Top 30 finish. Since joining Division I, it has made 14 championship appearances as a team, and five golfers have competed for individual honors in the championship round.

The program has produced notable touring pros, including Gene Sauers, Jodie Mudd, Mike Donald, Blake Adams, Steve Ford, Richie Bryant, Aron Price and the late Jimmy Ellis. Numerous former Eagles make their livelihoods as club pros while others have entered the coaching ranks, such as University of Florida head coach Buddy Alexander and Georgia Tech assistant coach Christian Newton.
Frank Radovich took over the program in 1962, was succeeded by Paul Carr, then Ron Roberts, Buddy Alexander, Doug Gordin, Drew Pittman, John Laird, and current head coach Larry Mays.

Gordin, now head coach at Florida Southern, led the Georgia Southern program for 13 years, 1982-95. He coached two PGA players, Mudd and Sauers, took the Eagles to four conference championships and six runner-up titles, coached five Golf Coaches Association of America All-Americans, and was named the NCAA South District Coach of the Year and conference Coach of the Year an unprecedented four times.

“I had a lot of great players at Georgia Southern and had some success with four conference championships and a 14th place finish in the NCAA in 1988,” said Gordin. “Georgia Southern was a great place to coach. Our whole athletics program was a winner in the middle and late 80s,” Gordin said, citing Mudd, Sauers, Bryant, Ford and Fred Benton among the players he was privileged to coach.

“Georgia Southern was a great place to coach. Our whole athletics program was a winner in the middle and late 80s’.” – Doug Gordin

Coach Larry Mays took the reins in 1999. “That first year, sheer luck more than anything, we made it to the national championship and played well,” Mays said. “The next year, we made it again, and that made it possible to go out and recruit that next level of player. We were able to get into some homes and have some conversations that five years before we would never have had the chance to get in.” High school players are being recruited at a younger age than ever before, said Mays. “We have to get to them earlier to compete against SEC or ACC schools. Recruiting is the lifeline of all college athletics.

“We bring them in and put them in the system, and make sure you try to nurture that system as best you can,” he said. “Golf is such a different sport. We’re a team, but it’s not like they have to depend on each other to pass the ball or block. If you get one marquee player he raises the bar for everyone around him. If you get two or three really good players you can make a deep run into the national championship. Now that they’ve gone to match play, it opens it up even more for schools like Georgia Southern to make a run at a national title.

“We have had the opportunity to compete at the highest level,” said Mays. “Hey, we are competing against the Floridas, Southern Cals, Tennessees and Texases of the world. We’ve actually got winning records versus a lot of those schools. In the last 10 years, we’ve been to the national championship as a team four times. There’s only 22 schools that have been more times than we have in the whole country, and that’s all Division I.”

It’s common to find Mays’ squad playing world-famous courses every fall. “Each season we try to give our players the most experience competing in different areas of the country and world,” Mays said. “As a team, it helps build chemistry and as a program, it affords us the luxury of competing on the best courses against the best collegiate teams.” In 2009, Georgia Southern experienced the different terrains of island play, competing in the Kaua’i Collegiate Cup in Hawaii. The Eagles tied for first. This fall, they played Scotland’s famed St. Andrews.

Winning is important, said Mays Ð but there’s more. “We try to do it the right way,” he said. Last year his team won the Grade Point Average Award for University athletics teams. “Our spring GPA was more than 3.5. We had three academic All-Americans and were one of only seven schools in the country that had that many. I take as much pride in that as I do us making it to the national championship,” Mays said. “Not only are we playing good golf, but the kids are getting it done in the classroom.

“We’re trying to make sure they’re getting some values in the system while they’re here as well,” he said. “It’s not just all golf. I want them being college students and having a good college experience, but when it is golf time, let’s turn it on and see how good we can be. When they’re in an office talking to a client or co-worker 20 years from now, they’ll have experiences that nobody else has. And that was only because they were college golfers at Georgia Southern University.

“You want them to be good people first, well-rounded students second, and great athletes third. If we can do those three things, when they walk out of here then they’re going to go be successful at whatever they do.”

Coach Frank Radovich remembers:

“I first came to Southern in September of 1962 and when I hired on, of course, it was as an instructor and assistant basketball coach. When I got down here, they told me I’d have to coach the golf team. I told them, ‘Listen I don’t know a thing about golf.’ They told me, ‘That’s alright, because all you have to do is drive them around.’ I said that would be alright.

“It was a non-scholarship program, so players just tried out. We played match play – just played other schools one-on-one. For example, we played Mercer, Valdosta State, The Citadel and Erskine College.

“We just hopped in my car and went – threw all the golf bags in the back. There were five of us, four players and I would go. They would give me a dozen golf balls for each match. That’s all we provided for the kids. They had their own clubs, their own shoes – I would give them two balls per match.

“Before we’d play a match we’d have a practice session and see who was hitting the ball the best and I would choose the four who would play in that match. When we went on the road, I was reimbursed eight cents per mile. The kids would ask, ‘Where are we eating supper?’ And usually we’d have just enough money and I’d say, ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken.’ They’d be so happy!”

Walking on…

For Andy Pennington there were no coaches competing for his collegiate golf skills, no letter of intent awaiting his signature Ð just a notice tacked to a bulletin board.

Pennington was a talented young golfer, but he hadn’t figured on playing at the collegiate level. In 1961, he and some friends were sitting around their dorm when someone mentioned that they had seen a notice seeking men who would be interested in starting a Georgia Southern golf team. He and a handful of others jumped at the chance.

“George Cook was the coach,” Pennington said, and the program operated on a shoestring budget of about $400. “None of us that I knew of were on scholarship that first year,” he said. “Truth is, we pretty much footed the bill ourselves.” He recalls that the players paid for gas to travel. They occasionally were given some new golf balls, he said, and were provided with logo golf shirts. “It was just the beginning,” he said, “and we like to think we at least laid the groundwork for the really good golfers that came later on.”

According to the Reflector yearbook, Pennington, Bobby Jones, Terry Davenport, John Dekle and John ‘Buddy’ Varn comprised the team that first year. Other players Pennington recalled during his time at Southern included Al Lassiter, Wright North, Bill Simmons, Sam Shaffer, Ron Slocum and Jimmy Flanders. “One of our big experiences was when we played Appalachian State,” said Pennington. “I think they had won the NAIA the year before and we actually beat them. Our senior year we beat Kentucky.”

Multi-sport coach Frank Radovich began leading the program in 1962, Pennington recalled, and guided the team for the remainder of his collegiate career.

Pennington, now 68 years of age, is retiring and relocating from Waycross, Ga., to Albany, Ga., after a longtime management career with Stewart Candy Company.

Host university for the Chris Schenkel E-Z-GO Invitational

The Schenkel E-Z-GO Invitational, named for the late sportscaster Chris Schenkel, was first held in 1971, and has become one of the nationÕs most recognized and prestigious collegiate golf tournaments.

Many PGA tour stars have made appearances on the links of Statesboro’s Forest Heights Country Club. Jay Haas, Jerry Pate, Andy North, Bob Tway, Mark Calcavecchia, Gene Sauers, Curtis Strange, Robert Wrenn, Gary Hallberg, Scott Hoch, Andy Bean, Hal Sutton and Scott Verplank are all alumni of the tournament.

So why does the tournament bear the name of Chris Schenkel? The future sportscaster was stationed at Georgia Southern, then-Georgia Teachers College, for nine months during World War II while he participated in a U.S. Army language institute. Some 30 years later, during a chance meeting between Statesboro’s Charles Robbins and Schenkel, the famed broadcaster told Robbins of his fond memories of life on campus, residing in Sanford Hall and overlooking Sweetheart Circle.

An avid golfer and member of Forest Heights, Robbins was granted permission by Schenkel to attach his name first to a club trophy awarded to the winner of an area high school tourney. In 1971, Schenkel okayed the naming of the first collegiate tournament at Forest Heights and subsequently made numerous trips back to Statesboro as a participant in its festivities.

Top Flight

In March 2010, the golf program dedicated the $1.8 million 25-acre Bennett-Ramsey Golf Facility, a practice and meeting complex rivaling that of any collegiate golf program in the nation.

The facility features a team clubhouse, dedicated practice putting green, three-green short-game area, two-tiered practice tee, driving range, and three practice holes. The complex is named in honor of program supporters Christian Bennett and Holmes Ramsey.

The Howard House clubhouse, named in honor of the Arthur Howard family, totals 6,000 square feet and includes coaches’ offices, a locker room, conference room, kitchen, team lounge area, an indoor putting lab, club repair area, computer and study area for student-athletes, and a “Hall of Fame” entryway.

The complex’s three practice holes are designed to be played from multiple tee boxes to maximize the practice facility and allow different yardages to be played. The first hole is a 390-yard, par 4; hole two is a 185-yard, par 3, and the final hole is a 330-yard, par 4. Each green on the practice holes has been designed to have at least three distinct target areas, allowing for different pin locations and making the facility a nine-hole course.

“The Bennett Ramsey Golf Facility and the Howard House have surpassed all of the dreams that I had for a practice facility here at Georgia Southern,” said head coach Larry Mays. “We are so lucky to have such great support from our boosters, the community and our athletic administration to produce such a beautiful facility. The results of all of the hard work are apparent both by the players that we have been able to recruit to play for our team and by the ability to develop those players here at the practice facility.”

The facility also includes the 3,000-square-foot Talmadge House which holds the superintendentÕs office, a classroom and a storage area. Maintenance at the complex is conducted in conjunction with Ogeechee Technical College and its turf grass degree program, allowing students to benefit from hands-on experience on an actual golf course.