Men's golf team tees off Monday morning at Suntree

The Eastern Florida State College men's golf team is hosting the 23rd annual Titan Winter Invitational beginning Monday at Suntree Country Club.

The tournament will have 14 teams including the defending NJCAA Division I National champion New Mexico Junior College as well as Central Alabama who tied for fifth last year. Also participating in the tournament is the NJCAA Division II national champion Mississippi Gulf Coast.

"You raise the competitive level of the field with the strength of the field and it is a good field," Eastern Florida State College men's golf coach Jamie Howell said. "We tell the guys that we just need to play our game, we can't worry about New Mexico or Central Alabama. It is the first tournament of the spring so everyone will have a little rust and the northern schools have been dealing with some weather, but I expect a good tournament."

Teams will have a shotgun start at 8:15 a.m. on Monday and play 36 holes and then begin again Tuesday at 8:15 a.m. for the final round.

"It's a good golf course, greens are firm and fast so you really have to work to be under the hole, if you miss in the wrong spot you are looking at a 5 or 6," sophomore golfer Jamie Chepenik said.

The Titans placed 14^th in the national tournament last season and had a solid fall season, placing in the top five in every event. Sophomores Hugo Griesheimer and Masen McKain competed in the national tournament last year and want to raise the bar this season.

"Teams were definitely a step ahead of us in most of the fall tournaments, they played low scores and we rarely played under par so we definitely need to do that in the spring," Griesheimer said. "We have to live up to our potential, which we haven't done so far."

McKain, who tied for 34^th in the national tournament in his freshman season, believes this group has the potential to do some big things this spring.

"We all blend together really well so it is easy for us to go out and have a good time which makes it easier to play well together on the golf course," McKain said.

Danny Byers joins the team and will be in the starting lineup this week at the Titan Invitational has seen this team's potential and feels good about this team's potential.

"We are all here for a reason and we need to have that confidence going into the tournament. If we weren't really good, we wouldn't be out here," Byers said.

The Titan Invitational is the first of four spring events for the men's golf team before competing in the Southeast District Championships in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.