University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Heads to the MacKenzie Invitational
10/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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After a strong finish at the Inverness Invitational, the Gophers return to action as they travel to Fairfax, Calif., for the Alister MacKenzie Invitational. The tournament tees off with 36 holes Monday, Oct. 11 at 10:15 a.m. CST and concludes with 18 holes Tuesday, Oct. 12.
The travel squad: Justin Doeden will try for his third straight top 20 finish as he starts in the No. 1 spot.
"Justin's confident," head coach John Carlson said of his top performer. "Technically he's sound right now. He's really worked hard in the last year to get to this point. He's excited to go out and compete against the best every week. He's made big strides since he got here on campus."
Riley Johnson, Thomas Longbella, Rúnar Arnorsson and Peter Jones will also be competing.
"The same four guys that played well at Inverness all qualified in," Carlson said. "Peter played really well at the St. John's Invitational. He earned his way into qualifying and played well. I'm excited to see how he performs."
The field: Arizona State, BYU, Cal, Fresno State, Loyola-Maryland, Michigan State, North Carolina State, Oregon State, Pepperdine, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, San Francisco, San Jose State and Washington make up the field.
"Primarily it's a Pac-12 field," Carlson said. "It's one of the better conferences in the country. Because of that, they play well around this time of the year. It's going to be a tough field at one of the best courses that we play. I think we are up for the challenge."
Arizona State (44), BYU (29), Michigan State (35), San Diego State (8) and Washington (50) are all ranked in Golfweek's top 50. Minnesota is no stranger to talented fields, playing against five top-50 teams at Inverness and eight at the Gopher Invitational.
The course: The tournament will take place at the Meadow Club. It plays at a par of 71 and 6,734 yards.
"It's a golf course that if you drive the ball well, it's really set up for birdies," Carlson said.
Notes: Minnesota finished tied for sixth at the Inverness Invitational. The Gophers finished even with No. 12 Virginia. They overcame a slow start, improving their score by nine strokes from the first to second round and only adding three strokes in the third round.
"They know how battle through adversity," Carlson said of his team's resilience.
Carlson wants his team to focus on getting off to a better start this week and continue to finish strong.
"Regardless of where we start at Meadow Club we have to come out with a much better performance the first couple holes. Then we can play loose, play free and play confidently."
Justin Doeden was the team's top finisher at Inverness and cracked the top-20 for the second straight tournament, placing 20th.
Freshman Thomas Longbella has started his career strong. He finished his first two tournaments with one of the Gophers top three scores.
"It's very important to have your young guys come in here with the attitude that they want to compete right away and help us out," Carlson said. "Thomas as done both of those things. We've asked a lot of him to compete in these college events against these great fields. He's up for the challenge. I expect him to play really well this week."
