A Tourney to Call their Own

The Oval Office was still occupied by Gerald Ford-although his life had already been challenged twice by would-be assassins. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest was the number one movie at the box office, and George Lucas had just begun production of the original Star Wars. Closer to home, the Aggie men's basketball team won the Southwest Conference, and Emory Bellard led the football team to a 10-2 record on the gridiron.

All these were true the last time that Texas A&M University hosted a men's regular season golf tournament, which was back in 1976.

But the lush fairways, beautiful landscape and outstanding facilities of the 16-month old Jack Nicklaus-designed Traditions Club are providing for a change. Thus, the commencement of the Aggie Invitational this Saturday will spell the thirty-year drought and trigger a new era of Texas A&M golf.

"I think [Traditions Club] is the whole thing," freshmen golfer Bobby Gates replied when asked the reason the Aggies are once again hosting a regular-season tournament. "We have this top-notch facility, and it is probably one of the best in the nation, so we're just going to try to show it off and hopefully take home a trophy while we're doing it."

The Texas A&M golf teams moved into the Paul Wahlberg '50 Learning Center at the Traditions Club on December 1, 2003 after years of not having a true facility to call home. The fruits of that move showed immediately as the men's team advanced to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 1997 and finished an unexpected 14th. According to men's golf coach J.T. Higgins, in addition to doing wonders for recruiting, the facilities are also spurring current Aggie golfers toward their potential.

"It is also helping us day-to-day," Higgins said. "We are becoming a better team because of our facilities. We have a place to practice our short-game, and we have a place to hit balls whenever we feel like it. And we have a great course to play and compete on. So we're getting better every day, and I think it is showing in our results and in our rankings."

For the past thirty years, the men's golf team has never had the opportunity for a home field advantage that the football, baseball, softball, tennis and essentially every A&M team is so accustomed to. Instead, week-in, week-out they have traveled to opponent's home courses to battle conditions, lies and breaks they have never seen. The tide is changing this weekend.

"It is a huge advantage because we know the course better than anyone else," Gates said. "That's just probably the biggest advantage anyone can have. You know where to go and know where to be and know where not to be. So we're acclimated to it, and it is a tough course so the first couple of rounds out there should be a challenge for most people."

Aggie golfers tune their swings on the driving range behind the Wahlberg Center. Coach Higgins believes playing the Par 5s well will be key over the weekend as they have "high risk/reward factors."

Hitting it long and straight off the tee is the consensus choice for the most important thing to consider when approaching the Traditions layout. Ironically, both Gates and Coach Higgins feel that the Golden Bear's design of Hole No. 3 is the best of the bunch.

"It is funny Bobby said that because No. 3 has been my favorite hole since the day that they were designing it," Higgins said. "I love the look of it, and I think it is a great par 5 where you have to hit a great drive and a great second shot. And if you do those two things, you are going to make a good score. But you see a lot of people make bad scores. I think when Nicklaus designed that hole, he was thinking of the scoring. He was trying to think of ways to keep people from being able to shoot 62s and 63s by scraping it around."

With the talent that is on 'par' for Saturday, some scores will surely dip into the 60s. Although four top-25 teams and twenty-one of the nation's best 100 individuals will be teeing it up, A&M is looking to defend their home turf. To do so, they will use momentum from the past two weeks at the GCAA Hall of Fame Invite in Humble and the Morris Williams Intercollegiate in Austin where they posted superb final round scores.

"One of the best compliments I've been paid since I've been at Texas A&M was when I had a coach tell me after the tournament in Austin that we're training the best final round team in the country," Higgins said. "I can't think of anything I'd rather our team be. We always say that the final round belongs to the Aggies, and you know we're starting to make that a reality. It is a good tradition to have, and that is something that we are going to try to build on for years to come."

Gates, who says that the exceptional facilities at the Traditions Club were second only to the coaching staff when making his decision to attend A&M, is another base that the Aggie golf program can build on for the next few years. But three other true freshmen-Matt Van Zandt, Chris Thompson, and Martin Piller-along with red-shirt freshman Trey Todd are adding some youthful assistance as well.

"Those guys have all made significant contributions to the team," Higgins said. "Gates I think is the most visible. He's played in every tournament, and he is probably going to set the freshman scoring record for Texas A&M. But Martin Piller and Trey Todd both have top-20 finishes. Both have great scoring averages. And Matt Van Zandt, probably even more so than his play on the course, has already made a great impact with his leadership skills and his attitude."

With a newfound attitude toward Aggie golf that is evident by the construction of the Traditions Club, many individuals from the community will be volunteering their time this weekend to make the tournament a success.

"There's a lot that goes into it," Higgins said. "Fortunately we have a lot of help. We've got a lot of people helping us as volunteers, and we've got a lot of people helping us with the administration side and game operations. Traditions Golf staff does a great job in helping us set-up the course. So basically, our job is just making sure everything gets done."

And to prove to the golf nation that Texas A&M University is a prime venue for future postseason tournaments.

"Well I'm hoping that this leads to regionals and nationals," Higgins said. "I'm hoping we get a regional championship here in the next couple of years and then a national championship down the road because they hand those out five years in advance. But that is my goal-I'd love to see a national championship in golf come to College Station and us have a team that is ready to compete for it too."

The inaugural Aggie Invitational will be the first step in that direction.

"We want to turn this into one of the premier golf programs in the country, and I think part of that is hosting your own event and having a great place to do so," Higgins said. "We're going to do a great job with it, and it is going to turn into one of the best college tournaments in the country. It is fun to bring college golf back to College Station."