Ideal conditions expected as Colonels prepare to host LaTour Intercollegiate

The golfing gods may be shining upon the LaTour Intercollegiate tournament hosted by Nicholls and held the LaTour Country Club in Mathews on Monday and Tuesday.

Forecasts call for a high of 80 degrees and only a six percent chance of rain, making for perfect golf weather for the event.

“We encourage everyone to come out to see some good golf,” said James Schilling, Nicholls golf coach and host of the event. “You will see a winning score, I’m sure, of under par over 54 holes, which is really good golf.”

Play begins each day at 8 a.m. with a shotgun start, meaning all teams will be starting at the same time throughout the 18 holes of the course. A total of 36 holes will be played on Monday, with 18 holes played on Tuesday.

LaTour features an 18-hole golf course designed by Shreveport native and PGA Tour champion David Toms. The 72-par course sits on 597 acres of rolling grassland and lakes. It features four par-5 holes, two on the front nine and two on the back nine. The length is 7,170 yards and has water hazards on 16 of the 18 holes.

Along with Nicholls, other teams competing in the event include Stephen F. Austin, UNO, Southeastern Louisiana, Texas Southern, Prairie View, Houston Christian, Texas A&M-Commerce, Incarnate Word, and the University of Mobile.

With the likes of UNO, Southeastern Louisiana, HCU, Texas A&M-Commerce, and UIW in the field, the Colonels will get a chance to size up many of their Southland Conference rivals in the event.

“That’s the great thing about the tournament. We are going to be able to see a lot of the teams we will face in the conference tournament. That’s the measuring stick you have to go against within the league,” said Schilling, who lists UNO, UIW and SFA among the tournament favorites.

The Colonels are a young squad with a roster boasting mostly freshmen and first-year players. The Nicholls lineup for the event includes Chase Pochylko, Mickael Najmark, Jack Moro, Diego Prat Cruza, and Zachary Morvant. Pochylko and Moro are freshmen, while Morvant is a sophomore, Prat Cruza a first-year transfer, and Najmark, a senior

Competing as individuals in the event from Nicholls will be Tommy Danielson, Peyton Canter, Dylan Weber, and Collin Jones. All are freshmen, except for Canter, who is a junior.

“We’ve seen some good and we’ve seen some not so good,” said Schilling, sizing up his team. “I will have to be extremely patient when you have that many, not only freshmen, but newcomers as well – a guy like Diego from New Mexico Junior College who came in and played some good golf for us.

“We’ve got some guys that have put some good rounds together. Almost all of my guys have put together a portion of a round together, similar to like we’ve put portions of tournament together, but a portion isn’t completing and finishing. That’s what you have to do.”

Schilling compared the plight of his squad to that of a football team.

“We’re a football team playing two good quarters or one good quarter. You need four to finish it off. We haven’t done that yet. Do I think it will come? Yes. It has to eventually, and hopefully, that will be this event,” the Nicholls coach said.

Keeping things interesting is a forecast of winds out of the east at 10-13 miles per hour both days.

“I think the course will hold up well,” Schilling said. “Ten miles an hour there tends to play a little bit more than that because you have zero protection. There is nothing out there. There are very few trees. The trees you have out there are trees that were planted when the course was built in 2010, the oaks and stuff, there’s just not that much protection.

“That course does not typically play with an east wind. Typically, it’s a south wind out of the gulf. It will be a bit different.”

Schilling said he would like the course to be as challenging as possible.

“As a coach hosting, you want it as difficult as possible,” he said. “That tends to kind of separate the field. Mainly your ball striking, if the ball is not hit extremely solid – you are not hitting the ball, basically – the wind affects a poorly-struck shot throughout the round much more than a solid.

“Golf is a very mental game, and if a person is worried about the conditions or the wind, or how hard the course is playing, or how they are playing on the round, that can tend to snowball throughout the round versus when everything is ideal.”

As their home course, the Colonels are quite familiar with LaTour. How they perform on it during tournament pressure is something Schilling has been eagerly anticipating.

“I’m extremely proud of my guys,” the Nicholls coach said. “They work hard. They continue to work hard. They are excited for the event. I’m very proud of the work they are putting in.

“I think there is a little bit of nerves involved because they haven’t performed in (a tournament setting) as a team as they feel that they can. They will be a little bit nervous, but that will go away once we play the first couple of holes.”