The fall semester of the 2019-2020 school year is almost done. As though it seems the semester has flown by, it has been a very successful semester here in Nebraska for the PGA Golf Management Program. With the help of my Vice President Joey Chandra and Secretary Blare Bauer, along with Golf Chair Corey Kruger and Membership Chair Beth Hildebrant, we have focused on getting our students more involved in our student club activities. This push for member engagement provides an excellent opportunity to introduce the new freshman cohort to our amazing students in PGA golf management at UNL.
To engage the members of our student club this year, we have held many different student activities and events. To this day, bowling nights have been the most popular event that we hold for our students. Meeting up at Sun Valley Lanes, we test our skills on the lanes instead of on the links. A new event arose this fall that was held at Adventure Golf Center in south Lincoln. Here we played a 36-hole mini golf skins match, which included many holes-in-one and way too many laughs at ourselves.
The fall meetings have also been a huge success so far this year. In October, we hosted the Sanford Power Golf Academy team of Todd Kolb, Sam Vossler, and Matt Stricker along with Sanford Health Executive Nate Blessen. Sanford talked about what it takes in their eyes to be a successful golf coach and instructor. They also took our students out for some pizza after the meeting to talk about anything else golf related. We look forward to hosting GolfTec and Brad Landon from The Club at las Campanas in New Mexico in early December before the end of the semester.
For our golf tournaments this year, we had a great turnout for most of our Tuesday/Thursday events with a mix of new and old winners from past years’ tournaments. Alongside our normal weekly events, we hosted the CONE Cup against the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) here in Lincoln. Day one was hosted at Firethorn Golf Club where team Nebraska took a day one lead of 5-2. Day two took place at our home course, Wilderness Ridge, where UCO took 9 of the 14 points to retain the CONE Cup with a total score 11 (UCO)-10 (UNL). The Riordan Cup was won by Team World this year 8 points to 6 points. After Day one, the match was all square 4 points to 4 points. On Day two, Team World earned 4 points to Team Nebraska’s 2 points to claim the Riordan Cup. Later in November, we will send five of our students to participate in the Jones Cup against other PGA Golf Management programs across the country. Representing Team Nebraska will be seniors Josh Baldus, Cordell Weber, Bill Rhiley, Cole Meschede, and freshman Chris Rasmussen. We have high expectations to compete for the Jones Cup this year!
As we wrap up the fall semester, we look back at another fun and successful fall here in Nebraska. We look forward to the start of our player development programs in the coming months and cannot wait to get back into tournament mode come spring.
In the spring, I will be heading out for an extended internship and serving as the Student Club President for the spring semester will be Brendon Bond who is returning to campus from completing his summer/fall extended internship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
Make sure you follow all our tournaments through Golf Genius this spring, where the link to the competitions will be share through our Facebook page.
Go Big Red!
More details at: https://grassland.unl.edu/pga-golf-management