Men's Golf Team Traveling To Japan In September For Topy Cup
June 11, 2012
CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Oregon State men's golf team will travel to Tanagura, Japan to compete in the Topy Cup, an annual event that was cancelled last year due to the tragic earthquake in the region, Sept. 11-13 against Baylor, Pacific, San Diego and Japan.
The United States-Japan Intercollegiate Golf Championship will feature 54 holes of competition over three days at the Tanagura Country Club with the four low scores from the five-person teams counting each day. A team and individual champion will be crowned at the conclusion of the event.
"This is all about the experience for the guys," Oregon State head coach Jon Reehoorn said. "It will be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal for them that they will remember for the rest of their lives. It will be a fun way to kick off the season.
"Unfortunately, we leave the day of the Oregon State-Wisconsin football game," Reehoorn added. "So the guys will miss the Wisconsin game, which is a bummer. So we'll fly out on that day and get there on the 9th. We have a practice round on the 10th and the tournament is the 11th, 12th and 13th. And then we'll stay in Tokyo on the night of the 13th, spend the day there on the 14th and then come home on the 15th."
Reehoorn and assistant coach Tim Sundseth will take juniors Nick Chianello, Matt Rawitzer and Nick Sherwood, sophomore David Fink and freshman Scott Kim. "I wish the entire team could go," Reehoorn said. "But we can only take five guys. I kind of picked the team based on who played last year."
College teams are allowed an international trip once every four years and the opportunity came up for Oregon State to make the trip when a couple of schools were unable to go.
"The guy who runs the tournament is the Pacific coach Brandon Goethals," Reehoorn said. "He's in charge of it from the American side. He emailed me and said `hey, Jon I have a spot in the Topy Cup. Do you want to go?' I said `well, it's probably a no-brainer; let me check with my boss.' We probably got selected based on our play last year. So it's a great opportunity for us."
There is no entry fee for the tournament and the hosts pay for all hotel accommodations and airfare for five players and a coach. After the event, teams will travel back to Tokyo via the famous "bullet train" where the Beavers will have the opportunity to tour the city before returning back to Corvallis.
Teams from the United States won the first seven years but Japanese teams have won 14 of the past 19 tournaments. The event was cancelled last year because of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011. It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.
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