Golf teams travel before opening event, seasons canceled

DEFIANCE, Ohio – The Defiance College men's and women's golf teams were set to begin play during Spring Break in mid-March – even traveling to their opening event in North Carolina – before the coronavirus caused the cancellation of both the opening tournament and later their 2020 spring seasons.

Defiance head coach Allen Curtiss, in his first year with the men's program and third in charge of the women, led the Yellow Jackets south to the Pinehurst area of the Tar Heel State for the Deercroft Spring Break Invite, hosted by St. Andrews University at Deercroft Golf Course in Wagram. Scheduled for the weekend of March 14-15, the tournament never got started.

"Well, we didn't hear about the tournament (cancellation) until right as we were getting ready to play the practice round on Friday," Curtiss said. "We got an email from the tournament director, the coach at St. Andrews, and he said his school just axed everything and we can't have it. But, we went out and still played the practice round.

"So, we actually played two rounds while we were down there. We got down there Wednesday night, played Thursday at a very nice golf course, and then the practice round on Friday. We left Saturday morning and came back."

Before heading to the DC campus, Curtiss took the group on some sightseeing at renowned Pinehurst Resort, which operates nine golf courses. The No. 2 course at Pinehurst is the most famous, having hosted several major tournaments over the years, including the U.S. Open three times since 1999.

"I had a chance to take them over to Pinehurst and they went through the pro shop and got to go out and see the 18^th (hole) on Pinehurst No. 2," Curtiss said. "We did a bunch of photos with statues and caddies and everything else there. They had a good time and that made their trip."

Two men, junior Hayden Clingaman (Stryker, Ohio/Stryker) and freshman Tony Keehn (Defiance, Ohio/Defiance), made the journey while slated to compete for the women's squad were sophomore Shelby Mercer (Canton, Ohio/GlenOak), and freshmen Emily Blanton (Plymouth, Ohio/Plymouth), Maricella Najar (Adrian, Mich./Madison) and Julia Yeager (Defiance, Ohio/Defiance).   

Another player on the men's side, sophomore Seth Mangus (Urbana, Ohio/Urbana), did not make the trip. He also plays tennis at Defiance.

Spring is the main season for the men and they are led by Clingaman, a three-year member of the program who was the Yellow Jackets' top finisher in all five fall events. A steady, consistent player, he shot between 77 and 84 over nine rounds in the fall.

"I expected Hayden to be able to compete for some conference honors and stuff like that," Curtiss said. "He's a really good golfer. Hayden's got the ability to be all-conference, he really does."

Keehn, who also took part in five tournaments during the fall, has been going through some changes with this swing. Curtiss was anxious to see him play more this spring.

"We revamped everything with him last fall," Curtiss said of Keehn. "We made a lot of changes with him and he worked on them all winter, and I wanted to see whether what we worked on carried over, and how much it carried over. It takes a while and doesn't happen overnight."

Mangus played in two events in the fall and was hoping to be available for more this spring.

The primary season for the women is in the fall, when the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship is held. They use the spring to get better and develop a bond.

"The plans were to get together so that they actually form a relationship, form a team and to be able to use it towards building for the fall," Curtiss said of the ladies. "I think we accomplished some of that. They had a great trip down and actually played fairly well, which surprised me having that big of a layoff. The couple of players that didn't play (at all or much) in the fall, they did better than what I anticipated. They've got some promise."

The women's team is led by Mercer, DC's only veteran, who competed the past two falls but missed last spring because of an injury. In 2019, she participated in four fall tournaments and was Defiance's top placer in three.

Najar, the only player on the squad to compete in all six events during the fall, was the Yellow Jackets' No. 1 finisher at the DC Invitational in September. Yeager played in the first three fall tournaments while Blanton is coming off a season with the Defiance women's basketball team and did not take part in any golf competitions.

The women's spring schedule included five events. The men were slated to represent DC in the same five tournaments, plus the HCAC Preview in late April and HCAC Championship in early May.

"The women were going to be done before finals, which is nice because then they could focus on exams and that kind of thing, since it isn't their championship segment," Curtiss said. "We were going to play in a couple of tournaments down around the West Virginia line, the Parkersburg/Marietta area, and also see a couple of conference foes down at Earlham."

In men's golf, Clingaman was named as one of the 2020 Golf Athletes to Watch by the HCAC and the Yellow Jackets were picked to finish eighth in a preseason vote of the conference's head coaches. Transylvania University, which has claimed the last 13 HCAC championships, is the team to beat. Transylvania is expected to win the title again and is followed in the poll by Earlham College, Hanover College and Franklin College.

With the golf seasons canceled this spring, Curtiss is focusing on the near future, which includes building strong squads.

"On the men's side, we're having a really good recruiting year," Curtiss said. "We're going to have seven or eight freshmen coming in, so we could be up around the 10 number for the men's team.

"With the women, we'll probably be around six to seven with two or three young ladies coming in."

Although it is disappointing for the Defiance golfers to not be playing, all of them have multiple years of eligibility remaining and the future looks extremely bright for both programs.