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Scots' Men's Golf 'Trending Up' with a Focus on the Future

by Dan Nolan

Monmouth, IL (03/04/2020) — Laying the building blocks with a young team, Monmouth College men's golf coach Cory Bizarri is using the fall season as the roadmap for success this spring.

"Every tournament last fall we kept getting a little better, then a little better and then a little better," reported Bizarri. "If we can keep trending in that direction this spring, we'll be very competitive."

The spring season can't begin soon enough for the Fighting Scots, who have been stuck inside with the winter weather. Bizarri is making the most of the situation as he prepares his team of four freshmen and two sophomores for its annual spring break pilgrimage to Arizona.

"It's tough when you're inside, but we can't change the weather, we can only adjust with it," said Bizarri. "We've gotten some time in with the simulators and that's giving us some feedback before our first outdoor rounds."

A trio of players - sophomores Ben Dobberstein (Oswego, Ill./Oswego) and Jimmy Johnson (Andalusia, Ill./Rockridge), and freshman Ryan Prusak (Oswego, Ill./Oswego) - played in all eight rounds last fall. The Scots posted a 330 - their second-lowest round of the fall - in their October finale. Prusak paced the team, averaging 80 strokes per round with a low of 75.

"Ryan is a very solid player who's putting a lot of time in on his short game," said Bizarri. "His ball-striking is fantastic. If he can make just a few more putts, his scores will drop dramatically. Ben had a very nice fall and showed signs of breaking through with his game. He just didn't put two good nines together and that's all about confidence. He's got the talent. Jimmy made some real strides in the fall. Sometimes those strides weren't reflected on the scorecard, but they were there. We adjusted his swing a little and his ball striking really improved."

Freshmen Maxwell Cook (Dunlap, Ill./Dunlap), Noah Shields (Rantoul, Ill./Rantoul) and Jakob Brokaw (Andalusia, Ill./Rockridge) also figure into Bizarri's future plans. Cook turned in the team's second-lowest round of the fall, carding a 79 in his fourth tournament of the fall season.

"Max struggled a little, but showed a flash of what he can do in the last two or three weeks of the fall season," said Bizarri. "Sometimes he just tries too hard instead of letting the game happen. From a physical skills standpoint, he's got all the tools to be really good. Noah has potential and had some good nines, but would have one bad hole. He's a golf nut and eats, sleeps and breathes golf. You don't have to worry about him putting in the effort. Jakob has some physical skills. He's a deceptively strong kid. He can just bomb it, but can have some problems controlling it. Once he gets his swing under control, he's going to be really good."

Bizarri expects his entire team to eventually be "really good," if they stay on their current path. Carrying a 344 team average out of the fall season, the Scots improved rapidly down the stretch, averaging 329 over the final three rounds. That's a number Bizarri predicts will go lower in the coming months.

"I would like to see us consistently under 320 this spring," he said. "If we can do that, then the next step for next fall is to get to 310. When we get to that 310 score, we're going to be very competitive. We sat down last fall and laid it out on the table. We knew we'd have some growing pains, but they put the work in, and as long as we continue to get better, we'll be OK. By the time this group gets to be juniors and seniors, they're going to be a really nice squad … as long as we keep trending upward."

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