Head Coach Justin Fetcho Email: [email protected] Office Phone: (618) 453-7248 SIUSalukis.com Twitter: SIU_MGolf SALUKI MEN’S GOLF NEWSLETTER • JANUARY 2017 Dear Saluki Family & Friends, I trust this letter finds you and your family doing well and your 2017 off to a fantastic start! I couldn’t be more excited to get the spring season started! We are looking forward to having a very successful spring and working toward bringing another Missouri Valley Conference Championship back to Carbondale. With the fall season officially completed, I have some great news to report on our academic prog- ress. All the hard work and dedication that we put forth on the golf course, has carried over to the classroom and I am proud to see their efforts produced some great results. Six of our eight play- ers earned a 3.0 GPA or better in the classroom during the fall semester. Our team ended up with a 3.13 team GPA in the fall, which shows that we have true student-athletes on this team. Also, I would like to mention that recent graduate, Drew Novara, who is attending grad school now, earned a 4.0 GPA in the fall. We had a couple of our players compete in tournaments over the winter break, as they traveled to Florida. Sophomore, Peyton Wilhoit and freshman, Sam Meek, both made their way down to St. Petersburg, FL, on January 5th-8th to compete in the 91st New Year’s Invitational. Peyton played some phenomenal golf with rounds of 65-68-76-75 to finish in 2nd place in a field of about 125 players. Sam fired rounds of 78-74-79-79. This event hosted collegiate players from all over the country and is one of the better fields in all of amateur golf; an amazing accomplishment for Peyton to finish runner-up. I know this event will help their confidence moving forward this spring. I am very proud of these two for taking the initiative to compete against some very good competition over the winter break and to keep their game sharp. With that being said, the spring season is right around the corner! The students will be arriving back to campus very soon and we will begin practice upon their return. We open up our spring season in Tucson, Arizona, for the Arizona Intercollegiate hosted by the University of Arizona on January 23rd & 24th. We are excited to see several West Coast teams that we haven’t seen this year, including several Pac-12 teams. Also competing in this event are the defending NCAA National Champions, the University of Oregon, so we will see a phenomenal field. If you are in the Tucson area, we would love for you to come out and support us! If not in Arizona, hopefully you will have the op- portunity to make it out to one of our other events this spring. Also, the 2017 SIU Men’s Golf Clubhouse Crew information will be sent out very shortly. This is a way that you can enhance the level of support and provide the best experiences for our student-athletes. I would appreciate any support you can provide these fine young men as well as the future of Saluki Golf! Your generosity will help us continue to travel to some of the best tournaments in the country, provide resources both on the golf course and in the classroom that will allow us to continue to recruit student-athletes that you can be proud to call Salukis! Please be on the lookout for the information very soon and I thank you in advance for any consideration that you might have in joining the SIU Men’s Clubhouse Crew and being a part of something special. Thank you for all of the past support you have shown our program. We have been overwhelmingly blessed with the tremendous support of SIU Men’s Golf! If you are a social media person and haven’t started following us yet, we are on just about every social media app out there. You can find us on Facebook at SalukiMGolf, Twitter at SIU_MGolf and now you can find us on Instagram at SIU_MGolf as well. By adding us to your social media apps, you can keep up with us more often, encourage our student athletes and help cheer us on to a great spring season! Go Dawgs! Justin Fetcho Head Men’s Golf Coach Southern Illinois University 1964 NCAA College Division National Champions SALUKI PLAYER SPOTLIGHT ON FRANKIE THOMAS 6-0, 148, FRESHMAN, CHESTERFIELD, MO. What is your favorite golf course you’ve ever played? My favorite golf course I’ve played would be St. An- drews because of the history behind all of it. Being able to re-create shots I’ve seen on T.V. was a dream come true. Who would be your dream foursome? My dream foursome would be Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Paige Spiranac, and myself. Arnie and Sam be- cause they are legends of the game and I would love to pick their brain about championship golf, and Paige because I would like to take her on a date. Who is your favorite PGA Tour player? My favorite PGA Tour player is Rickie Fowler because he is such an ambassador for the game and has re- ally spoken to the younger generation of golfers like myself. Do you have any superstitions that you have to do before every round? The last thing I do before I head to the first tee is make 5 putts in a row from 5 feet. It gives me an extra con- fidence boost before I start my round. What are your goals for the spring season? My goals for the spring season are big ones, but with the group of guys we have I believe they are very ac- complishable. I would like to always be in a position to win on the final day, and if we don’t come away with a victory, then we learn from it and adjust. If we can do that, I feel like it puts us in a great place to win our second Conference Championship. What is your most memorable round at SIU? The most memorable round I’ve had at SIU is ironically the first one. I shot 64 at the Murray State Invitational and had 9 birdies, but most of all we came away with a team victory, which gave us confidence throughout the fall season. If you could play another sport in college, what would it be? If I could play another sport in college, it would be Basketball. I played in high school and love the team aspect of the game as well as the competitive spirit it brings. I would like to play basketball because it is more of a spectator sport and with it being played inside, you don’t have to deal with elements of nature. If you could buy a car right now, what would it be? If I could buy a car right now, it would be a Tesla Model S. I drove one to Prom and I love the design and the electric speed it has. SALUKI PLAYER SPOTLIGHT ON LUKE GANNON 6-2, 185, SOPHOMORE, BEL AIRE, KS What is your favorite golf course you’ve ever played? My favorite course that I have played was The Classic Club in Palm Desert, CA. The golf course was the greenest and by far the best manicured golf course that I have ever played, and it was also a very tough test. The firm greens made it fun when thinking about approach shots and all around course management. It is by far my favorite course that I’ve ever played on. When did you start playing golf? I started playing golf when I was about 14 years old. I was getting burnt out of baseball and one summer my brother suggested that we go play a round of golf. I fell in love with the game that day and it has led me here to SIU. What is your best memory at SIU? My best memory from SIU would have to be winning the Missouri Valley Conference Championship last April. Being able to win the championship with all of my family there and playing the tournament about 45 minutes from where I grew up was very special. It was also an amazing feeling to help bring SIU Men’s Golf its first conference title. What is your favorite place to eat in Carbondale? Chili’s. It is always busy but it is worth the wait each time. I love their honey chipotle chicken crispers and their ba- con cheeseburger. It is the most filling and flavorful restau- rant in town. If you could trade places with one person for a day, who would it be? If I could trade places with one person for a day it would have to be Kevin Plank the Founder and CEO of Under Ar- mour. I would be very interested to see what he does on a daily basis and what it is like to run that company just for one day. It is by far my favorite athletic apparel company and it would very cool to be in Kevin Plank’s shoes for a day. Have you ever made a hole-in-one? I was a sophomore in high school and we were playing a tournament in the spring. The wind was blowing about 30-40 mph and as I approached one of the par threes, I had a feeling I would make an ace.