Hunter Thomson leads individual standings after 36 holes
of inaugural championship
MacTier, Ont. – The Tigers shot a collective 22-under to lead after the opening 36 holes of the 2024 Canadian Collegiate Invitational at Öviinbyrd Golf Club in MacTier, Ont. on Monday.
The Tigers have a fairly young group this season, having lost a couple senior players to graduation allowing for new players to enter the line-up this year that features two sophomores and a freshman. Two of those sophomores were big contributors on Monday as Veikka Viskari of Espoo, Finland shot rounds of 69-67 and Brock Snyder of Ames, Iowa shot 69-68 to help lead the Tigers. Senior Dagbjartur Sigurbrandsson of Reykjavik, Iceland also shot rounds of 69-68 to have his scores count as did Matthias Varjun of Tallinn, Estonia (74-70).
“You could be going, or you could be struggling and for 36 holes, five guys that’s a lot of golf today. There’s going to be bad shots and bad stretches and really, we just wanted them to focus on the things they could control and just go from there for 36 holes and see what happens,” said Missouri Tigers Coach, Glen Millican.
Millican added that a little fatigue began to creep in as the day progressed, but he was proud of how his team battled through the day, “they did a great job, handled it really well.”
The Tigers taken an 11-shot lead into the final 18 holes on Tuesday. Behind the Tigers are the Michigan Wolverines and Notre Dame Fighting Irish, both collectively at 11-under. Tournament co-host, Kent State Golden Flashes are fourth at 6-under.
Millican said getting the ball in play off the tee is priority number one at Öviinbyrd, “once you do that, you really got to pay attention to what you’re doing into the greens because if you fall asleep a bit and hit a good shot you can be penalized, so we want to make sure we don’t penalize ourselves after hitting a good shot.”
In the individual competition, Team Canada NextGen member, Hunter Thomson (Michigan) of Calgary, Alta. leads at 12-under following consecutive rounds of 66 on Monday. Fellow Team Canada NextGen member, Isaiah Ibit (Kent State) of Orleans, Ont. is in a three-way tie for second at 8-under with Viskari (Missouri) and Weston Jones (Rutgers) of Sudbury, Mass. Team Canada member, Ashton McCulloch (Michigan State) of Kingston, Ont. is tied for fifth with Snyder and Sigurbrandsson (Missouri) at 7-under.
In addition to the Invitational tournament, Team Canada is running its selection camp for the 2025 NextGen team. After 36 holes, Jager Pain of Woodbridge, Ont. leads after posting rounds of 71-70 to sit at 3-under, one shot ahead of Austin Krahn of Christina Lake, B.C. Current Team Canada NextGen member Luke Smith of Toronto, Ont. is in third at 1-under. The 19-player field is competing for one guaranteed spot on the 2025 Team Canada NextGen squad.
The inaugural invitational tournament is being conducted by Golf Canada and co-hosted by Kent State University and Penn State University who are both led by Canadian head coaches, Jon Mills (Kent State) and Mark Leon (Penn State). The tournament features nine NCAA Division I men’s golf teams with prominent Canadian ties along with the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds. UBC qualified after winning the 2024 Canadian University/College Championship in June at Idylwylde Golf and Country Club in Sudbury, Ont.
The championship is being contested over 54 holes in two days, with 36 holes played in today’s opening rounds followed by 18 holes in the final round on Tuesday. All three rounds will be played in a shotgun format. The team component features five members per team with the top four scores for the day counting to the overall team score. The individual competition will be stroke-play with the winner receiving an exemption into the 2025 RBC Canadian Open and the top five receiving exemptions into the 2025 Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship, presented by BDO.
For the leaderboard following the first two rounds of the Canadian Collegiate Invitational, click here. For the leaderboard from the Team Canada NextGen selection camp, click here.