Season Preview: 2017-18 Michigan Men's Golf
9/12/2017 7:24:00 PM | Men's Golf
» Michigan returns its top two performers from a year ago -- senior Kyle Mueller and junior Nick Carlson -- while senior Ian Kim looks to bolster the depth for the starting five.
» The Wolverines added three freshmen -- Connor Prassas, Henry Spring and Charlie Pilon -- to replace their three graduates from last season.
» Michigan has made NCAA Regional appearances the last three seasons.
» The Wolverines will play four fall tournaments and have six regular-season spring events leading up to the Big Ten Championships.
The 2017-18 University of Michigan men's golf begins its seventh season under head coach Chris Whitten and is looking for its fourth straight NCAA Regional appearance. The Wolverines will open the season Monday and Tuesday (Sept. 18-19) at the Inverness Intercollegiate at the prestigious Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.
Wolverine Bites
• Michigan made its third straight NCAA regional appearance as a team last season, finishing 10th at the Washington Regional. Kyle Mueller led the Wolverines, tying for eighth individually and missing advancing to his second NCAA Finals by a single shot.
• Last season, U-M won two team titles -- the Dayton Flyer Invitational and Desert Mountain Intercollegiate -- while adding four individual titles and two runners-up. All four medalists are returning Wolverines -- Mueller (twice), Nick Carlson and Ian Kim.
• Mueller earned his third straight All-Big Ten selection and second straight first-team accolade last season. He became just the second Wolverine in program history to earn three All-Big Ten honors, joining Michael Harris, who was a three-time first teamer (1998-2000). Mueller has second-team honors as a freshman (2015) and back-to-back years of first-team selections (2016 & 2017).
• In addition to his Big Ten honor, Mueller garnered PING All-America honorable mention by the Golf Coaches Association of America, becoming the 10th Wolverine to earn an All-America accolade and the first in six years (2011).
• Mueller and Carlson both competed at the U.S. Amateur this summer. Mueller made his third straight appearance and advanced to match play for the second time, reaching the round of 32. Carlson made his second straight trip after his run to the Final Four in 2016.
Kyle Mueller
Breaking Down the Roster
• Mueller enters his final season looking to build upon his already stellar career. Last season he broke his own single-season scoring record with a 71.36 per round average. He is the only golfer in program history to close a season with a sub-72 average. He posted six top-10 finishes and was the medalist at the Windon Memorial (Sept. 25-26, 2016) as well as at the rain-shortened Aggie Invitational (April 1-2, 2017). For his career, Mueller has started 37 straight events, producing 16 top-10 individual finishes with nine among the top five. He owns the school record with his 72.07 career scoring average and has 40 sub-par tallies in 96 career rounds.
• Carlson started all 13 events and posted a career-best 72.53 scoring average last season. He earned his first collegiate victory in the season-opening Inverness Intercollegiate (Sept. 19-20, 2016), and nearly a month later he lost in a playoff with Kim for medalist honors at the Dayton Flyer Invitational (Oct. 17-18, 2016). Carlson set career lows for a single round (67, -4 in third round at Inverness), 36-hole tournament (142, Dayton) and 54-hole tournament (209, -4, Inverness). He has 24 straight starts for U-M and carries a 73.16 career average.
• U-M added three newcomers, welcoming Connor Prassas (Chicago), Henry Spring (New Zealand) and Charlie Pilon (Australia). Prassas helped Loyola Academy to back-to-back Chicago Catholic League championships (2015, '16) as well as the 2016 Class 3A Team Finals where the Ramblers finished fifth. In 2016, he won the Illinois State Junior Amateur title. Spring played in three straight Toyota World Cups for Team New Zealand and was ranked No. 7 on the New Zealand Men's Order of Merit and No. 45 on the Australian Men's Rankings. Pilon advanced to match play three straight years at the Australian Amateur Championship and was No. 3 on the Australian Boys Ranking and No. 117 on the Australian Men's Ranking.
Nick Carlson
2017-18 Schedule
• The Wolverines' fall season is comprised of four events beginning with a nearby trip to Toledo, Ohio, Sept. 18-19 for Toledo's Inverness Intercollegiate at the prestigious Inverness Club, site of U-M's run to a semifinal finish at the 2009 NCAA Finals. A week later, the Maize and Blue will head to Sugar Grove, Illinois, Sept. 24-25, for Northern Illinois' Northern Intercollegiate at the site of the 2017 NCAA Finals, Rich Harvest Farms.
• Closing out the fall season are return trips to Alabama's Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate (Oct. 9-10) and Baylor's Royal Oaks Intercollegiate (Oct. 23-24), where Mueller will look to defend his individual title.
• The spring season's six-event slate will begin with the annual Big Ten Match Play Championship (Feb. 9-10). The match play event has continued to serve as an opportunity to prep for the format at the NCAA Finals.
• U-M will start its spring break training trip by playing in Pepperdine's Southwestern Jones Invitational (Feb. 26-27), before hosting the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate (March 3-4) for the fourth straight year on the Outlaw Course at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona.
• The regular season will close with trips to Mercer's Linger Longer Invitational (March 18-20), Texas A&M's Aggie Invitational (April 7-8) and Purdue's Boilermaker Invitational (April 14-15).
• The postseason will begin with the Big Ten Championships (April 27-29), to be held at the Baltimore Country Club for a second straight year. A few weeks later, NCAA Regionals begin, May 14-16, with six sites -- Raleigh, North Carolina; Bryan, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Kissimmee, Florida; Norman, Oklahoma; and Stockton, California.
• The 2018 NCAA Finals will be held at Karsten Creek Club in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Hosted by Oklahoma State and the NCAA, the qualifying teams will play 54 holes of stroke play before the first team cut. Following a final 18 holes to determine the individual champion, the top eight teams will advance to match play to compete for the national title.
Players Mentioned
