AUGUSTA, Ga. — For over four decades the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational has showcased some of the top collegiate golf talent in the country here in Augusta. This year will be no different. The first round of the event scheduled for Saturday with 36 holes and will wrap up on Sunday with the final 18 holes.
The top ranked team in the nation, the Texas Longhorns will be joined by three other top 10 teams in the nation, Oklhoama State, North Carolina and Illinois, to help lead an elite field that will battle it out at Forest Hills Golf Club. Also taking part are the College of Charleston, Arizona, East Tennessee State, Furman, Kennesaw State, Navy, Notre Dame, Richmond, Rutgers, and Texas Tech.
The host Jaguars have won the tournament 12 times and are looking to add another trophy to the collection, but they’ll have their work cut out for them. While they haven’t had the best results at times this year, the Jaguars have showed improvement the last few tournaments. It’s something coach Steven Paine has noticed.
“It’s another good opportunity for us to grow, but it definitely feels like we’re trending in the right direction. Guys have been playing a lot at Forest Hills and we feel pretty good having our home event and are looking for a strong finish with a great field,” said Paine.
Paine said his team hasn’t reached the Augusta standard and are aware of it. He said it’s a matter of having everyone putting good rounds together at once. There has been splashes of that, but they haven’t all clicked at the same time.
“The key for us is to get some lower score contributions,” said Paine. “One thing we’ve done well most of the year is being consistent. We’ve had a lot of guys around par. The tournaments we have played well, at Florida State and at the Linger Longer, we had some good contributions from guys who posted 66’s and 67’s which helps that team average, rather than five guys around par.”
Past winners of the event include Phil Mickelson, Vaughn Taylor, Oliver Wilson, Henrik Norlander, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Young just to name a few.