The men’s and women’s golf teams started their seasons off with three-round tournaments this week.
Women’s Golf
Women’s golf took an eighth-place overall finish at the Branch Law Fir–Dick McGuire Invitational on Tuesday. The Bears left Albuquerque, N.M. at the Championship Golf Course carding 33 over for a total of 897, pushing them ahead of the University of New Mexico Lobos by one stroke.
Mercer entered this season coming off a third-place finish in last season’s Southern Conference Championship. Since then, Head Coach Michele Drinkard signed Bhoomi Jagtap ‘27 and Riley Kim ’27 through the transfer portal over the summer. Mercer also completed the construction of the Kevin and Carolyn Scheck Golf Performance Center in time for the new season.
The new facility’s Trackman simulator bays, which Drinkard said offers over 100 golf courses, prepared the team for major environmental changes in New Mexico. The system allowed Drinkard and her players to simulate a variety of elements like “never before,” she said. The team’s simulations included a 5,000-foot increase in elevation, differences in grass and the colder weather in Albuquerque.
“We were able to make all the adaptations before we even got there, and then we were able to just put it right into play,” Drinkard said. “It brings the piece of the puzzle to our program that we really, really needed.”
Drinkard said neither she nor the players had played at the course before, and that the team used the opportunity to visualize their next tournament in Vail, Colo.
Notably, on the par-3 eighth hole for the tournament, Katie Scheck ’26 hit the ball 142 yards down range to notch her first career hole-in-one. She led the team with an 11th-place finish.
Ella Mäki-Tanila ’28 rose 14 spots up the leaderboard on the tournament’s final day after shooting one over par.
In the 89-player event, Scheck’s finish led the Bears, followed by Mäki-Tanila’s tie for 41st. Kim, Tylar Whiting ‘27 and Mahima Varuptur ‘28 tied for 49th, 53rd and 66th respectively. Jagtap, who played as an individual, tied at 53rd.
Scheck said team chemistry carried the players’ success. “We were waving at each other between fairways,” she said. “We really brought it together, we were really there for each other.”
The Bears will travel west to Vail for the Golfweek Red Sky Classic from Sept. 21-23.
Men’s Golf
Men’s golf, led by Cole Hanson ’26, kicked off the season with an eighth-place finish in the Golfweek Fall Challenge on Sept. 9. The Bears left the three-day tournament in Pawley’s Island, S.C. finishing 11-under par.
Mercer stayed busy over the summer after placing seventh in the Southern Conference. Head Coach Jason Payne brought in two players, including last year’s Sunshine State Conference Freshman of the Year, Albin Ekvall ‘28. Josemaria Gutierrez ‘25 also joined the Bears this July.
The Bears also hired a new assistant coach, Matt Ariza. Ariza spent two years at Eastern Kentucky before joining Mercer’s staff.
In his college debut, Phillips Swift ‘29 started the tournament with three consecutive birdies. The Macon native finished the first day of the tournament three-under par. Tied for 11th, Swift headlined the Bears’ hot start to the week.
Hanson finished day one tied for 16th, finishing in the same position. His consistency highlighted the Bears’ season opener, shooting two-under 70 in both of the first two rounds and closing out round three with one-under.
The Bears fell behind after round one, dropping from fifth to seventh by the end of the second day. “There were too many blemishes on the scorecard that kept us from having a great second day,” said Payne.
By the third day’s close, Hanson topped Mercer’s scorecard while shooting five-under 311. Swift tied with teammates Connor Holcroft ‘27 and Nathan Trodd ‘26 for 37th, all of whom scored one-under 215.
The Bears go to Miramar Beach, Fla. from Sept. 22-24 for the Raven Golf Club’s Sandestin Collegiate Classic.
Nathaniel Jordan
Nathaniel Jordan ’29 intends to major in Journalism at Mercer and hopes to work as an investigative journalist. His hobbies include poetry, photography and home cooking, and you can probably find him around Macon shopping or walking through local parks with his wife and son.
