Golf team ranked 21st

Published 5:16 pm Thursday, May 27, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Hampden-Sydney College golf team was ranked 21st nationally in the final Division III Bushnell Golfweek Coaches Poll for 2021, and 23rd nationally in the final Golfstat Division III Top 25. The Tigers were ranked 11th by Golfstat in the South Region that includes five of the top eight teams in the country.

H-SC has seven golfers ranked highly among the final Golfstat national and regional individual rankings, including junior Hunter Martin, ranked 50th in Division III and 25th in the region with his 74.54 scoring average, followed by freshman Meade Slonaker (75.31), ranked 57th in DIII and 29th in the region, and junior John Hatcher Ferguson (74.40), ranked 83rd in DIII and 34th in the region-each among the top 100 nationally.

Others ranked among the top 100 regionally are senior Allen Smith (76.06), ranked 150th in DIII and 66th in the region, sophomore Alex Rubino (77.38), ranked 261st in DIII and 85th in the region, sophomore Trevor Elliott  (76.11), ranked 233rd in DIII and 94th in the region and freshman Tommy Bishop (78.00), ranked 318th in DIII and 100th in the region.

Email newsletter signup

Ferguson, who missed the first four tournaments due to injury, returned for the final two events and finished 46th nationally and 18th in the region in scoring average. Martin, the 2021 Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Individual Champion, finished 20th in the region with scoring average. Hunter tied the ODAC Championship 54-hole record with his 73-69-69–211, becoming the fifth Tiger to claim medalist honors as an ODAC Individual Champion in the sport, the first since 2003.

H-SC, under the direction of third-year head coach and fourth-year Director of Athletics Chad Eisele, averaged 300.81 per round in its six tournaments, 15th-best in DIII and seventh-best in the region, with two top five finishes among four top 10 overall efforts. The Tigers posted a two-day, 54-hole score of 298-293-295–886 to finish as runners-up at 2021 ODAC Men›s Golf Championship, just two shots behind Guilford, who went on to finish third at the 2021 NCAA Division III National Championship.

H-SC could return as many as 10 lettermen for 2021-22, and Coach Eisele and second-year assistant coach Duncan Wheeler have recruited a talented class of six newcomers for the upcoming year.