Championship Central
EUREKA, Mo. - For the sixth-straight event, the GLVC Sports Network (GLVCSN) will stream three days of coverage of the 2021 Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Men's Golf Championship, which begins Sunday at Fox Run Golf Club in Eureka, Missouri.
GLVCSN will stream live and free coverage of the 42nd annual event, which will be contested April 18-20 for the first time at this course, but which previously hosted the 2018 GLVC Women's Golf Championship. Fox Run Golf Club will be set up at a par of 72 and 6,903 yards.
The GLVC Championship features a 54-hole stroke play event with the top-four teams after stroke play competing in medal/match play to determine the Conference champion. A total of 36 holes will be played on Sunday, April 18, followed by 18 holes on Monday, April 19. The semifinals and finals of match play will take place on Tuesday, April 20.
The top-five finishers at the GLVC Men's Golf Championship are named All-GLVC, and the top-finishing individual after 54-hole medal play will earn medalist honors. The remaining golf awards, including All-Conference positions Nos. 6-10, as well as GLVC Player, Freshman, and Coach of the Year, are named following the spring season by a vote of the coaches.
Twosome and threesomes will tee off beginning at 7:30 a.m. CT on Sunday, with GLVCSN streaming the Nos. 1 and 10 tee, as well as coverage of Nos. 9 and 18 green and other select shots, from approximately 7:20-1 p.m. GLVCSN will be back on the air for a recap of the first round and coverage of the second 18 holes from approximately 3-7:45 p.m. On Monday, teams will tee off at 8 a.m. with GLVCSN on the air from approximately 7:50-12:30 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., which will include the individual awards ceremony and annual GLVC Medal/Match Play Selection Show.
Several hours of coverage will also be dedicated to the semifinal and final rounds of medal/match play throughout the day on Tuesday, beginning at 7:50 a.m., which will include closing awards ceremony coverage at the end of the final round.
Listed coverage is weather permitting and subject to change. Any updates to this schedule will be relayed on the Championship page as well as on social media, which can be accessed by visiting the links noted below.
Providing the coverage this year will be the GLVC's Tyler Madsen, who is a former golf coach and sports information director from Truman State University. Madsen has been with the Conference office for the last four years, serving as a communications coordinator for statistics and standings while also providing commentary during that time at the GLVC Men's and Women's Basketball Championship Tournament, the Softball Championship Tournament, and the Men's and Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
The University of Indianapolis returns to the GLVC Championships as the No. 1 seed for stroke play, as the Greyhounds currently rank as the top GLVC squad and first overall in the Golftstat Midwest Region rankings. Second-seeded Maryville University (4th in the Midwest) and third-seeded University of Missouri-St. Louis (5th) will compete in threesomes with UIndy during the second set of tee times off tee 1, while McKendree University (10th), University of Illinois Springfield (11th), and Missouri S&T (13th) will play in the third wave as teams seeded fourth through sixth, respectively. Teeing off first from tee 1 will be No. 7 seed Lindenwood University (18th) alongside No. 8 Drury University (21st) in pairs to start the event. Off 10 tee will be No. 9 University of Southern Indiana (23rd) in a threesome with 10-seed Rockhurst University (25th) and 11-seed Lewis University (27th). Seeds 12-13 will respectively be William Jewell College (30th) and Quincy University (34th), which will go off first in twosomes from tee 10.
Last season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but at the last championship event in 2019, fourth-seeded Maryville turned in impressive team performances en route to its first-ever GLVC Championship. The Saints completed the effort by winning both the Semifinals and Finals of Medal/Match Play in tiebreaker fashion. They first tied top-seeded UMSL, 2.5-2.5, and earned the win with a lower five-man total, 358-363, before doing the same against second-seeded and defending champions UIndy, 361-265. This was the first time a tiebreaker was used to determine the champion and just the second time a 4-seed won the GLVC crown.
Bellarmine senior James Inman capped off his impressive postseason career with his second GLVC medalist honor at 7-under 209 (69-69-71). Inman was tied with UIndy's Graham McAree through 54 holes but shot par on the 18th hole in a playoff. Coupled with the 2019 victory, he finished his four-year career 7-under in GLVC Championship stroke play, which included a 4-under-par runner-up effort as a freshman in 2016, a 3-under performance that won him the 2017 title, and a fifth-place tie last year at 7-over.
Drury's Craig Stefureak (73-72-67) and Clayton Larsen (71-70-71), along with UMSL's Reilly Ahearn (73-69-70) finished in a three-way tie for third with 4-under 212s. Those three, along with Inman and Mast were named to the All-Conference team at the event.
Indianapolis has captured 15 GLVC Championships, followed by former Lewis and former GLVC members Bellarmine and Northern Kentucky with six each. Missouri-St. Louis has earned two GLVC titles, while Maryville, Southern Indiana, and former league members Ashland and UW-Parkside, have all claimed the GLVC Championship once.
Admission to the 2021 GLVC Men's Golf Championship is free to the public, while a limited number of carts will be available for a fee.
Live coverage can be seen by logging on to the GLVCSN's official website,
GLVCSN.com, or on the GLVCSN iOS/Android mobile apps, as well as on the Roku, Apple TV, Amazon fireTV, and Android TV OTT platforms. Live scoring will occur every three holes for most of the event and is available through Golfstat.com or on the GLVC Men's Golf Championship page at
GLVCsports.com/2021mgolf. Updates will also be included on the GLVC's official Twitter accounts (@
GLVCsports and @
GLVCSN) with the hashtags #GLVCmgolf and #GLVCchamps.