May 12, 2006
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Less than a week before making its third consecutive NCAA regional appearance (and 33rd overall trip to NCAA postseason play), Notre Dame will take part in one last regular-season event this weekend when it makes its debut in The Maxwell at the Dornick Hills Golf & Country Club (par 70/6,442 yards) in Ardmore, Okla. In just its 15th year, The Maxwell already has become well-known on the college golf circuit as a strong pre-NCAA event, providing competitors with a chance to keep their game sharp before heading into regional play.
The Irish are coming off one of the finest performances in the 77-year history of the program, rallying from 12 strokes back in the final round to win their third consecutive BIG EAST Championship on the first hole of a sudden death playoff on April 25 in Dade City, Fla. Notre Dame closed with a school-record 272 (-16) and then got a birdie from freshman Josh Sandman in the playoff to help secure the third straight NCAA automatic bid for the Irish, who learned they will compete in the NCAA East Regional May 18-20 in Orlando.
Named the Golfweek National Team of the Week on May 1, Notre Dame continues to enjoy one of its most successful seasons ever in 2005-06, currently posting a school-record 293.23 stroke average with six top-six finishes and six wins over Golfweek Top 25 opponents. The Irish also are poised to have at least three players finish with sub-74 stroke averages for the first time ever.
Quoting Coach Kubinski ...
"We're thrilled to be included in this year's Maxwell. Both our hosts (Oklahoma State and Oklahoma) have excellent programs with storied traditions. It's also a great way to begin our NCAA preparation. Having 25 days or so between our BIG EAST title and the NCAA regional might be
a little too much time to feel tournament sharp.
This is a great opportunity to play an outstanding golf course, with top competition and in an area of the country that truly loves college golf. The format is also unique with all five of our players together and counting four of our scores on each hole.
"As a first-time participant, I don't speak with plausible assurance as I say this, but I have to believe we'll need to make a few birdies to have a chance to win come Sunday. Our current BIG EAST Championship squad has great birdie potential. We're looking forward to the challenge and feel it will be a fun tournament to be a part of!"
Dates and Times
Teams will tee off together in groups of five via a shotgun start at 8 a.m. (CT) Saturday, with Notre Dame penciled in to start the first round at the fifth hole. Teams will return to the course Saturday at 2:15 p.m. (CT) for second-round play, using the same shotgun format, with the Irish to open on the 14th tee.
Sunday's final round tee times will be based upon the 36-hole team standings. The top five squads will start on the first hole, going off in reverse order (fifth place to first place) at 10-minute intervals beginning at 8 a.m. (CT). The remaining six teams in the field (places 6-11) will utilize a shotgun start at 8 a.m. (CT), with those schools placed at tees No. 2-7 in reverse order (i.e. 11th-place team at No. 2, 10th-place team at No. 3, etc.).
Following The Irish
There will be no live scoring available for The Maxwell. However, a live Internet television broadcast of the tournament (courtesy of KXII-TV in Ardmore, Okla.) will be made available at www.kxii.com by clicking on the appropriate link located on the right side of the main page. Tentative broadcast times for the tournament are 12-5 p.m. (CT) Saturday and 11 a.m.-finish (CT) on Sunday.
In addition, complete results following each day's action will be posted on the official Notre Dame athletics web site (www.und.com) and the Irish Sports Hotline (574-631-3000).
The Tournament Format
A total of 11 five-man teams (55 participants
plus any individual competitors teams may wish to
enter) will be taking part in The Maxwell. The
tournament uses a unique scoring format in which
the four individual best scores per hole are
counted to the team score, rather than the
conventional method of counting the four lowest
18-hole totals to make up the team total. What's
more, teams will be playing together in groups of
five, rather than in the common setup of
three-man pairings with competitors from
different schools.
The Teams
Besides Notre Dame and tournament co-hosts
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the remainder of the
11-team field for The Maxwell is as follows:
Baylor, Colorado, Louisiana-Monroe, Michigan
State, Oklahoma City (NAIA member), Sam Houston
State, SMU and Tulsa.
Of the 10 NCAA Division I teams competing
this weekend, seven are headed to NCAA regional
play next week - Notre Dame (No. 16 seed - East),
Baylor (No. 5 - West), Colorado (No. 19 -
Central), Oklahoma (No. 13 - Central), Oklahoma
State (No. 1 - Central), SMU (No. 16 - Central)
and Tulsa (No. 8 - Central). Three of those
schools earned their NCAA berths automatically by
winning their conference tournaments - Notre Dame
(BIG EAST), Oklahoma (Big 12) and SMU (Conference
USA) - while the remaining four clubs garnered
at-large consideration.
According to the latest ratings in the
Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index (as of Monday
afternoon), five of the team's in this year's
field at The Maxwell are ranked among that
survey's top 50. Second-ranked Oklahoma State
leads the way, followed by No. 15 Baylor and
23rd-ranked Tulsa. Other top-50 notables in the
field include No. 35 SMU and No. 36 Oklahoma,
with Notre Dame (54th), Michigan State (55th) and
Colorado (58th) on the doorstep.
In addition, the newest Golfstat rankings
were unveiled Tuesday and there are five of this
weekend's participants appearing in that
service's Top 50. No. 2 Oklahoma State is the
highest-ranked team, followed by Baylor (14th)
and Tulsa (24th). No. 35 Oklahoma and 40th-ranked
SMU also are in the mix, with Notre Dame (51st)
and Michigan State (53rd) not far behind. It
should also be noted that Oklahoma City is rated
fourth in Golfstat's NAIA current rankings.
Head-To-Head
Notre Dame has faced four of the other 10 teams
in the field at The Maxwell this season, sporting
a combined 5-2 (.714) record against those
squads. The Irish are 2-0 this season against
both Michigan State and SMU, as well as 1-0
against Colorado. Conversely, they are 0-2
against Baylor in 2005-06.
The Course
One of the older courses in the country, Dornick
Hills Golf & Country Club had its groundbreaking
in 1913 and was originally designed by Perry
Maxwell, the namesake of this weekend's
tournament, on the site of a dairy farm owned by
Maxwell. The par-70 layout owns the distinction
of being Oklahoma's first course with Bermuda
grass greens, as well as the first to be
affiliated with the United States Golf
Association (USGA). While not a particularly long
course at 6,442 yards, it provides a challenging
test for players with its narrow tree-lined
fairways, small greens and numerous natural rock
formations.
Dornick Hills has been the site of
numerous tournaments through the years, including
the Ardmore Open from 1952-54. It also has been
regularly named one of the top five courses in
the state of Oklahoma by Golf Digest.
Notre Dame At The Maxwell
The Irish will be making their first appearance
at The Maxwell this weekend. Tournament co-host
Oklahoma State is the four-time defending
champion at the event, which is in its 15th year
of existence.
Last Time Out: BIG EAST Championship
Coming into the final round of the BIG EAST
Conference Championship in third place and 12
shots behind Louisville, Notre Dame rallied all
the way back with a school-record score of 272
(-16), forcing a sudden-death team playoff, which
the Irish won on the first extra hole at the Lake
Jovita Golf & Country Club in Dade City, Fla. It
was Notre Dame's third consecutive BIG EAST
title, along with a third consecutive automatic
bid to the NCAA regionals for the Irish.
Freshman Josh Sandman was the hero for
Notre Dame, rolling in a 10-foot birdie putt on
the first playoff hole to help clinch the Irish
victory. Sandman had tied the 36-hole school
record at the BIG EAST Championship (141), but he
shot a final-round 76 that was not counted prior
to his clutch putt. Sandman finished tied for
20th place with a season-best one-over par 217
(70-71-76).
Senior tri-captain Mark Baldwin earned
all-conference honors for the second consecutive
year (and became the first three-time all-BIG
EAST selection in school history) with his
fifth-place tie and four-under par 212
(69-77-66). His final-round 66 and 54-hole total
of 212 both go down as school records for BIG
EAST tourney play.
Senior tri-captain Scott Gustafson and
junior tri-captain Cole Isban shared eighth place
with matching scores of three-under par 214.
Gustafson rebounded from a slow start with scores
of 75-71-67, and his final-round 67 tied his
career low. Meanwhile, Isban was steady
throughout the tournament, carding rounds of 70,
72 and 71.
Senior Tommy Balderston proved to be
Notre Dame's valuable trump card at the BIG EAST
Championship. Making his first appearance with
the Irish travel squad in more than a year, the
Boca Raton, Fla., veteran fired a one-under par
215 (72-75-68) to tie for 13th place in the
60-man field.
Noting The Irish At The BIG EAST Championship
Notre Dame joins St. John's as the only
schools in the 26-year history of the BIG EAST
Championship to win three consecutive titles on
two separate occasions. The Irish recorded their
first hat trick from 1995-97, while St. John's
posted a pair of "four-peats" from 1981-84 and
1986-89.
The 12-shot comeback was the
second-largest in both Notre Dame and BIG EAST
Championship history. In 1995, the Irish erased a
13-stroke deficit to oust Connecticut in what was
then both a fall tournament and a 36-hole event.
Notre Dame's 12-stroke rally also was the
largest by any conference champion in any league
tournament this season. North Carolina was second
with an 11-shot comeback that resulted in a
shared Atlantic Coast Conference title with
Georgia Tech.
The sudden-death playoff was the first in
the 26-year history of the BIG EAST Championship.
In fact, the tournament had featured only one
other tie - in 1989, St. John's won its most
crown based upon the second-round score of its
fifth golfer (a tiebreaking procedure no longer
employed by the conference).
Notre Dame set school and BIG EAST
Championship scoring records for 18 (272, -16)
and 54 holes (842, -22). The prior Irish
single-round standard was 275, set at the 1999
Air Force Invitational in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame's best three-round score
had been 854 at the 2004 Nelson Invitational,
played on the shortened par-69 Stanford Golf
Course.
The Irish registered the third-lowest
final-round score (272) for any team in any
conference tournament this year, topped only by
matching scores of 269 by top-ranked Georgia and
No. 3 Florida at the Southeastern Conference
Championship (played on a par-70 course). In
fact, only two other teams had lower scores in
any round of their conference tourneys this year
- in the second round of the ACC Championship
(par-72 course), Georgia Tech fired a 267, while
Clemson had a 268.
Notre Dame Named Golfweek National Team Of The Week
The Irish achieved another first in the 77-year
history of their program on May 1 when they were
chosen as the Golfweek National Team of the Week.
The honor came following Notre Dame's memorable
12-shot comeback in the final round of the BIG
EAST Championship and subsequent playoff victory
over Louisville.
The Ranking File
One of the ways Notre Dame has been able to
inject itself into the conversation as one of the
nation's upper-echelon programs has been its play
against some of the other elite teams in the
country. This season, the Irish have defeated six
Top 25 opponents (according to Golfweek),
including three in the past three tournaments
alone. What's more, the Irish have ousted 11
ranked teams since head coach Jim Kubinski
arrived on the Notre Dame campus in January 2005.
In 2005-06 alone, the Irish have
dispatched No. 3 Florida (Shoal Creek
Intercollegiate), No. 12 Tennessee (Administaff
Augusta State Invitational), No. 16 Texas (The
Prestige at PGA WEST), No. 16 Minnesota
(Boilermaker Invitational), No. 17 Alabama (Shoal
Creek) and No. 23 Northwestern (Boilermaker). All
rankings are taken from the Golfweek index at the
start of the tournament.
Measuring Stick
A good indication of the progress Notre Dame has
made in the short time Jim Kubinski has been head
coach can be found in the team's stroke average.
Currently at 293.23, it would shatter the old
school record by more than five shots (298.29 in
1999-2000). In addition, the Irish presently have
three players with stroke averages at 74.00 or
lower (min. 13.5 rounds) - Cole Isban (72.97),
Mark Baldwin (73.23), and Scott Gustafson
(73.40), with freshman Josh Sandman (72.89)
needing to play 4.5 more rounds to join that
group. In the 77-year history of the Notre Dame
program, the Irish have never had a trio score
lower than 75.32 for an entire season (1999-2000
- Todd Vernon at 74.18, Steve Ratay at 74.54 and
Alex Kent at 75.32).
One other item to watch is Notre Dame's
progress on a round-by-round basis in each
tournament. This season, the Irish are averaging
a 295.60 in their opening round before trimming
that score to 293.30 in round two. However, Notre
Dame has saved its best round for last, firing a
290.80 on average this season.
Tough Enough
When it comes to scheduling, the philosophy of
Notre Dame head coach Jim Kubinski centers around
playing in the nation's top tournaments on the
country's best courses in order to prepare his
team for postseason competition. Heading into The
Maxwell, the Irish schedule is ranked 57th in the
nation, according to the latest Golfweek rankings
(as of May 8). Upon closer inspection, nine of
the 11 tournaments Notre Dame has played this
year are ranked among the 60 toughest in the
nation for the 2005-06 season by Golfweek,
including five in the top 35. Leading the way is
the CordeValle Collegiate (18th), followed by the
Administaff Augusta State Invitational (19th),
Shoal Creek Intercollegiate (27th), Gopher
Invitational (34th) and Coca-Cola Duke Classic
(31st).
Some of the premier courses the Irish
have played this year include: Shoal Creek
Country Club in Birmingham (site of the 1984 and
1990 PGA Championships), PGA WEST in La Quinta,
Calif. (site of numerous PGA Tour events in the
past two decades), the TPC of Myrtle Beach
(S.C.), and the Birck Boilermaker Golf
Complex/Kampen Course in West Lafayette, Ind.
(site of three previous NCAA regionals/finals and
host of the 2008 NCAA Men's Golf Championships).
Enter Sandman
For much of the 2005-06 season, freshman Josh
Sandman was forced to the sidelines with a
nagging back injury. However, the problem cleared
up enough to allow the rookie to enter the Notre
Dame lineup on April 1-2 at the Administaff
Augusta State Invitational, and since then, the
Greensboro, N.C., native has been a major
contributor to Irish fortunes.
In just three tournaments this year,
Sandman is posting a 72.89 stroke average, with
four of his nine rounds coming in at par or
better, including one in the 60s. He also has
finished in the top 25 each time, peaking with a
tie for second at the Boilermaker Invitational on
April 8-9. Yet, his biggest contribution to date
came on after his only discounted round of the
season (76 in the final round at the BIG EAST
Championship), when he knocked his difficult
approach shot from a tough downhill lie near a
fairway bunker within 10 feet of the pin and made
the ensuing birdie putt to help Notre Dame win
its third consecutive BIG EAST title.
Next Up For The Irish: NCAA East Regional (May 18-20)
Notre Dame will make its 33rd NCAA postseason
appearance May 18-20 when it travels to Orlando
for the NCAA East Regional at the Lake Nona Golf
& Country Club. It will mark the third trip to
Florida this season for the Irish, who finished
fourth in the spring opener at the Lexus Naples
Intercollegiate Invitational (Naples, Fla.) and
won the BIG EAST Championship April 24-25 in Dade
City, Fla.
Notre Dame will be competing in its third
consecutive NCAA regional, having narrowly missed
advancing to the NCAA Championships each of the
past two years out of the NCAA Central Regional.
In 2004, the Irish ended up four strokes from the
10-team cut line, and last year, they shaved that
margin to two shots. In both cases, Notre Dame
was tied for 10th place with two holes to play
before coming up just short.
