ALLENDALE, Mich. — Grand Valley men's golf had their best season in program history and capped it off with a GLIAC championship win two weeks ago. Now the Lakers are prepping for a trip to the DII midwest regional tournament in Winona, MN.
GVSU beat Wayne state 5-0 in match play to secure that conference title. Nick Krueger (Spring Lake) and Bryce Wheeler (Gull Lake) shot 68 and 71 respectively, both beating their opponent by five strokes.
They won five tournaments of the nine they played this season which set a school record. Now they'll turn their attention to the regional tournament next weekend.
"The regular season doesn't count for a whole lot, right? We were able to win our conference championship so that's a good start to the post-season but now we have had a record setting year. It's definitely been the best in school history but none of that really matters if you don't perform well at regionals or the national championship. We're trying to be t he 1996 Chicago Bulls not the 2015 Warriors," said Head Coach Gary Bissell.
Part of their success Bissell says is from their depth. Their 4th and 5th spot golfers are freshman this year with a lot of talent. One of them being Gull Lake native Bryce Wheeler who won the MHSAA division two championship last spring and has brought his talents to GV.
Wheeler says he's grown a lot in his game over the last year, but his short game is where he's seen the most improvement.
"I definitely feel like my short game has improved a lot since coming here. Like with our really nice practice facility over there, it's definitely nice to get and understand more shots for when I miss the green and stuff," said Wheeler.
The Lakers will leave for Minnesota next week before the regional tournament starts on Thursday, May 11th. The top three team automatically get a bid to the national tournament in Warren, Ohio. The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year’s head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven.
