Trinity Men’s Golf Competes in NCAA Championship Tournament in Kentucky
The Trinity College men’s golf team, which repeated as the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) champions with a thrilling comeback win in the league championship tournament last month in Vermont and earned the conference’s automatic bid to the 2019 NCAA Division III Championship Tournament, will compete in the four-day, 42-team event held at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, from Tuesday, May 14, to Friday, May 17. The Bantams, coached by Matt Greason (in his sixth season), will be making their third appearance in the NCAA Championships, having first qualified as NESCAC champion in 2010 prior to last season’s 34th-place finish in the national tournament in North Carolina.
Trinity senior tri-captain Will Rosenfield (Baltimore, Md.) took home medalist honors in the 27-hole NESCAC Championships with a 103 that was highlighted by a 69 over 18 holes in day two. Fellow Bantam senior tri-captains Jack Junge (Lincolnshire, Ill.) and Taylor Kay-Green (Needham, Mass.) shot a 108 and a 109, respectively, while classmate Nick Branchina (Summit, N.J.) in the NESCAC Championships on April 27 and 28 at Middlebury College’s Ralphy Myhre Golf Course. The Bantams came back from four strokes down after Saturday’s rain-shortened, nine-hole round to record a 27-hole total of 430, including a 281 (-3) on Sunday to capture the title.
For the first time since 2012, the NCAA is bringing a men’s golf championship to Kentucky, as Transylvania University and the Bluegrass Sports Commission are hosting the Division III event on Keene Trace Golf Club for the first time. The club, which served as the site of the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf National Championship in 1993, features both the Champion Trace and Keene Run 18-hole courses. Home of the PGA Barbasol Championship, Keene Trace has also hosted multiple professional, amateur college, and open competitions. Beginning with Tuesday’s first round, half the teams will play the Champions Trace Course while the other half will compete at Keene Run. Teams will flip courses in Wednesday’s second round. Following the first 36 holes of play, the top 18 teams on the leaderboard, plus the six individual golfers, will continue on into the final two rounds of play, scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
Trinity has been ranked as high as No. 25 nationally in the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) poll, and is the top-ranked team in the region. This spring, Trinity also won the Williams Spring Opener and tied for first in the Tim Brown Invitational in Upstate New York. Trinity won its own Bill Detrick Invitational and the Ekwanak College Tournament in Vermont during the 2018 fall season. Coach Greason, also Trinity’s men’s ice hockey coach, was selected as the NESCAC Men’s Golf Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season. Rosenfield has become one of the nation’s top individual linksman, having won medalist honors in three different tournaments and finished no lower than a tie for third place in the nine events that he has played. Rosenfield, who owns a scoring average of 70.3, has repeated as both the NESCAC Player of the Year and as a semifinalist for the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) Division II/III Jack Nicklaus Award (National Player of the Year) this spring. Rosenfield joined Branchina, Junge, and Kay-Green and Kelly on the 2019 All-NESCAC First Team.
