East Lansing, Mich. – Michigan State’s men’s golf team opens up the 2025-26 season on Sunday, August 31 playing in the Island Resort Intercollegiate at Sage Run Golf Course in Bark River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The teams will play 36 holes on Sunday and the tournament concludes on Monday, Sept. 1 with 18 holes.
ISLAND RESORT INTERCOLLEGIATE
Dates: Sunday, August 31 – Monday, September 1
Course: Sage Run Golf Course in Bark River, Mich.
Par/Yardage: 72 / 7,375 yards
Format: Stroke play, 54 holes, play five, count four
Schedule:
Sunday, August 31 – Rounds 1 & 2 (8:30 a.m., shotgun start, continuous play)
Monday, September 1 – Round 3 (8:30 a.m., shotgun start)
MSU LINEUP
No. 1 – Lorenzo Pinili
No. 2 – McCoy Biagioli
No. 3 – Connor Fox
No. 4 – Julian Menser
No. 5 – Caleb Bond
IND – Ashton McCulloch
IND – Juan Velasquez
IND – Lucas Acevedo
SAGE RUN GOLF COURSE
Sage Run, ranked among Golf Digest’s America’s Best New Courses, is set in the Upper Peninsula hardwoods and open vistas with very dramatic views.
MICHIGAN STATE AT THE ISLAND RESORT INTERCOLLEGIATE
This will be Michigan State’s third visit to play in the Island Resort Intercollegiate, and its first since 2021, when the Spartans won the team title. In 2021, the Spartans topped the 10-team field with a 15-under par 894 (278-281-290), winning the tournament by 23 strokes ahead of second-place UCF. James Piot (70-68-71) and Troy Taylor II (69-70-70) tied for medalist honors at 7-under par 209.
MSU first played in the event in 2019 and finished in fifth place as a team, led by Piot, who took medalist honors for his first career win at 9-under par 207 (68-70-69). The Spartans finished with a team score of 4-under par 860 (289-292-279) to finish fifth, just one shot of out third place and only five back of tournament champion Liberty.
THE FIELD
South Dakota State (host), Ball State, Central Florida, Illinois State, Miami (Ohio), Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, St. Mary’s (CA), Nebraska, UTEP, West Virginia,
RESULTS
Live scoring for the event is available through Clippd
(https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/238629/scoring/participants)
ABOUT THE SPARTANS
Michigan State is coming off of its fourth-straight appearance in the NCAA Regionals and the eighth in the last nine years. Including James Piot’s appearance as an individual in 2021, the Spartans have been represented in the last nine NCAA Regionals. The Spartans finished in third place in the newly-expanded Big Ten last year and welcome back its entire starting lineup from last year and welcomes back one of the top players in program history in Ashton McCulloch.
McCulloch, senior Caleb Bond and junior Lorenzo Pinili were selected as Golfers to Watch by the Big Ten Conference earlier this week.
McCulloch returns to the Michigan State lineup after missing most of last year with an injury. He was the team’s top finisher in three Fall events, carrying a 69.78 scoring average, but missed the spring before returning to the course over the summer. As a junior in 2023-24, McCulloch set a program record with a 70.89 season average, and enters this year with a career 71.59 average, which currently stands as the best in program history.
Bond earned All-Big Ten Second Team honors and All-Midwest Region kudos last year, carrying a 71.69 scoring average (sixth-best all-time at MSU) while posting nine top-20 finishes. He is coming off a tremendous summer as he won the 2025 Michigan Amateur title and advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur.
In addition to his first career win, Pinili finished third on the team with a 73.34 scoring average with two top-5 finishes, three top-10s and five among the top-20. Pinili, who fired a 5-under par 211 to win the Colleton River Collegiate in March, has a career average of 73.75 over 69 rounds. His career average ranks 13th all-time at MSU.
LUBAHN’S THOUGHTS
“This time of year, when we’re getting ready for the season to start, is always exciting. We haven’t been up to Sage Run in a couple of years but any time we get a chance to play in-state, it’s always a treat. Our team has had some pretty good success up in the UP the last two times we’ve played there and it’s one of the best courses around, so we’re really excited to get going and looking forward to what we think can be a pretty special season.”
