Illinois men’s golf is set to hit the ever-sloping greens of the Forest Hills Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia this weekend for the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational.

The Illini roll in fresh off their seventh consecutive top-five finish, this time earning fourth place, at the OMNI Tucson National Golf Club’s National Invitational Tournament. Despite an electrifying final push from fifth-year Matthis Besard and sophomore Jackson Buchanan combining for 9-under in the final round, the team fell by a mere three strokes at the hands of the hometown favorites, No. 18th Arizona.

Illinois found itself in position to come out of Tuscon atop the leaderboard, and with the standards that head coach Mike Small holds this team to, their noses have been right back to the grindstone in preparation for the upcoming tournament in Augusta.

“We came out today and played as solid as anybody in the field until we had a meltdown the last couple of holes,” Small said. “So there’s positives to take away, but there are some things we’ve got to work through.”

While the Illini have been hard at work to battle through these concerns, there were two major positive takeaways from this tournament: the play of Jackson Buchanan and newcomer Matthis Besard.

“For those two to ‘bring it’ the last round was a huge positive,” Small remarked. “They’ve done it before, and we know that they can do it, so it was good to see them do it today.”

With Besard and Buchanan starting to catch their groove, a red-hot fifth-year Tommy Kuhl and the consistent play and leadership of fifth-year Adrien Dumont de Chasart, the Illini are ready to put that work on display in Augusta.

Illinois men’s golf touches down in Augusta as the sixth ranked team in the nation per Golfstat. They are the highest ranked of seven other top-50-ranked teams in the 15-team tournament pool with Texas (9), Florida (12), Oklahoma State (18), Georgia Southern (19), Virginia (22), East Tennessee State (38) and Notre Dame (47) to round it out.

The tournament will consist of 54 holes played over the course of two days with 36 holes scheduled to be played on Saturday and the remaining 18 holes to ensue in the final round on Sunday.

With just two tournaments remaining before the regular season shifts toward the postseason with the start of the Big Ten Championships set to take place on April 28 in New Jersey, the Augusta Haskins Awards Invitational will be a great test for the Illini as they continue to work out all of the kinks in preparation for the end of April and beyond.

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