After 131 years, MSU won its first national championship Sunday. Surprisingly, it was not football, baseball, basketball or any of the usual suspects, but disc golf.
The Bulldogs captured the Collegiate Disc Golf Championship in Augusta, Ga., with a seven-stroke victory over runner-up Arkansas.
The Bulldogs had never been to nationals before but posted a score of 51 strokes under par.
Junior co-president Drew Davis won the individual competition Saturday by one stroke with a score of 19-under-par. Davis, senior Daniel Philley and freshman Robert Stroup garnered All-American honors.
Davis said winning the crown was quite an accomplishment considering MSU’s entire history has yet to produce a team title.
“[Winning the title] is pretty awesome,” Davis said. “The school has been around for 131 years, and we have done something this year that has never been done, which is amazing.”
The event was divided into four rounds. In the putting round Sunday, Arkansas won by one stroke to leapfrog to second place passed Alabama-Huntsville but did not come close enough to MSU.
The Bulldogs went into doubles competition Sunday as the co-leaders. At the time, MSU and Alabama-Huntsville were the two leaders. The stage was set for a show down in which State dropped only one hole out of 20.
“We were the last two teams to tee off, so everybody had finished their rounds by the time we finished,” Davis said. “All the teams that were at the tournament were sitting at the tent watching us finish our last couple of holes, which was pretty cool.”
Saturday was the individual medal play. Davis’ cameback from nine strokes down to take the individual title in epic fashion, Jones said.
One of the new teams to the competition, MSU came out flat in the first round but raised some eyebrows by the end of Saturday, ending up 11 strokes down.
The team turned on a switch in the later rounds.
“We played the hardest course set-up in the fourth round Saturday, and everybody on the team played excellent,” Davis said. “We ended up gaining 12 strokes and leading the entire tournament by one stroke.”
Experience, leadership and confidence separated the Maroon and White from the pack. The team pointed to Davis as the backbone of the team. Davis said a target is now on the team’s back.
“You know how many people have gotten on Facebook and said, ‘The next time I beat you, it means so much more,'” Davis said.
Stroup said people might tend to take disc golf as a joke, but apparently huge efforts are being made to make the sport more serious. The national championship coordinators dressed to the nines as if it were the Masters, Stroup said. The teams also had a dress code during the weekend.
Disc golf involves using three different discs called drivers, mid-ranges and putters to play typically 18 holes. The object of the game is to throw the discs in the fewest amount of throws from the start, a tee-box, to the end, a chain-trap and basket suspended on a pole.
The championship is just the beginning according to the team. Senior Kenneth Gustine and junior Andy Jones said the team hopes more people will come out and play.
“Since we have won the national championship people come up to me and say, ‘I want to play!’ because it is like disc golf is that good here at MSU,” Jones said.
The team has put up some impressive performances, culminating in championship performance at Augusta.
“At the Alabama Slammer, we won by one stroke,” Gustine said. “At the championship, we beat the same guys at Alabama by 43 strokes.”