narrominded
Jake Narro, PGA professional, head golf coach at Southeastern Louisiana University and
Backspin publisher
As the summer break comes to a close and
the fall semester and golf season approaches,
I’m extremely excited about getting started.
I’ll be entering my third campaign as men’s
golf coach at Southeastern, and I feel as if I’m
finally completely settled into my comfort zone.
The on course part of the job has been the
easiest adjustment from being a club pro to golf
coach. Practicing, tournament play, and helping
the team with their games have been the easiest
and quickest transition from my former career
of working as a club pro. Recruiting, scheduling
events, fundraising and understanding all the
crazy NCAA rules have all been much more
challenging. I feel as if those aspects of the job
are smoothing out and will continue to do so.
We have a very busy fall schedule in which
we will play in a couple of events we are very
familiar with and a couple with which we are not.
We start out with the Sam Hall Intercollegiate
hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi
in Hattiesburg. We are very familiar with the
tournament and the Hattiesburg Country Club
where the event is played.
From there, we will play the Jim Rivers
Invitational which is hosted by Louisiana Tech.
It’s quite an event to play as we play one of the
best courses all year in Squire Creek. Next on
the schedule is a new event for us hosted by the
University of Louisville. Associate head coach
and former SLU Lion Aaron O’Callaghan
invited us to play, and it will be a great experience
for the guys.
We will have close to a “home game” when
we play the in Tiger Classic hosted by our
neighbors to the west LSU. It’s always fun to
measure oneself against a quality opponent
like the Tigers, and playing the University
Club is always quite the challenge. Our
final tournament of the fall will be the Duck
Commander hosted by UL of Monroe. This
event is played in El Dorado, Arkansas on one
of the best maintained golf courses we play –
Mystic Creek. The greens are fast, smooth and
undulating which provides for a fun day of golf.
Five more events plus conference
championship highlight the spring schedule
where once again we have a couple of new
events and a couple of familiar ones. We start
out close to home in Diamondhead playing
in the University of New Orleans Privateers
Invitational. We will play the Cardinal course
which should produce some low scores.
The second event of the spring is perhaps
the best event of all. The All-American
Intercollegiate is co-hosted by Rice University
and the University of Houston. It’s played at the
Golf Club of Houston on the same tournament
course that hosts the PGA Tour’s Shell Houston
Open. We play our event three weeks before
the tour event, and the course is in great shape
which gives the guys a bit more adrenaline. It’s
always fun to play the same course where the
best players in the world play.
Another new event is next up as we travel
to Lake Charles and play the Golden Nugget
Invitational hosted by McNeese State. This is
one we have highlighted on the schedule as
McNeese has been the gold standard of our
Southland Conference the last couple of years
so it will be a good week to see where we stand
in our conference. We will get back on the road
for Jonesboro Ark. to play in the Red Wolves
Intercollegiate hosted by Central Arkansas.
Our last regular season tournament will be
the Wallace Jones Intercollegiate to be played in
Monroe, La. at Bayou De Saird Country Club.
The guys on the team are very familiar with the
course, and we should have a good finish leading
into Conference Championship. Speaking of
the Southland Conference Championship, we
will once again return to McKinney Texas to
play for a Conference title. The Pete Dye course
at Stonebridge Ranch Country Club is more
than worthy course to host our championship.
This summer, the club regrassed the greens
and renovated numerous bunkers on the course
which should be in great shape by next April.
Wow! I didn’t realize how pumped I am to
get the season going. I can’t wait to get the guys
into town and get started. I’m expecting great
things this season.
Jake
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