A Notre Dame team consisting of experienced upperclassmen along and a dynamic freshman started the season with just one loss and a top-10 ranking. Of course, this describes Tony Jones, Khalid Kareem, Kyle Hamilton, and the Fighting Irish football team, but it also works for the <check notes> men’s golf team? In a surprise to Irish fans everywhere, Notre Dame is a golf school now. You’d be forgiven for overlooking this oft forgotten part of the Irish athletic department, but do so at your own peril. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Irish golfers are in the midst of their best season in modern school history. Read on to learn a bit about the program, coach, and players, and be on the lookout for a post next week recapping their fantastic fall season.

The Program Finds a New Coach

Notre Dame boasts a unique golf tradition that few schools can match. The school’s Warren Course is one of the top campus courses in the nation. It even served as the host for the US Senior Open this June. Renown golf author/traveller/sadist Tom Coyne is an alum of the university. Jimmy Dunne, a university trustee, is well known in golfing circles (be sure to watch that linked video, seriously, here it is again, do it). The men’s team even has a National Championship, although they won it way back in 1944.

Recently however, the Irish women have had much more success than the men. 2019 women’s team alum Emma Albrecht qualified for the US Women’s Open this summer at Charleston Country Club. 2015 alum Talia Campbell finished second at the US Women’s Mid-Amateur just a few weeks ago. Most notably last fall, 2012 alum Becca Huffer became the first ND women’s golfer to earn an LPGA Tour card. The men’s recent history is fairly bleak, however. The team’s last appearance at Nationals was in 1966. Even making Regionals has been a struggle; the Irish haven’t qualified since 2012.

Enter John Handrigan. AD Jack Swarbrick hired the then Florida assistant as the new Irish head coach after the 2016/17 season. In 2015, Handrigan won the Strickland Award as the nation’s top assistant coach. The Ontario native had previous stops at Kansas, St. Francis, Queen’s University, and Coker College. The Irish improved dramatically in their first two years under Handrigan. The team posted significantly lower scoring averages, and won the 2017 Fighting Irish Classic. Although the team finished each season just outside the cutoff for Regionals bids, the 2017/18 squad finished a program best 6th place in the ACC Championship, one of the toughest conferences in the country.

Meet the Team

Coming off a solid, if unspectacular 2018/19 season, this year’s team returned four of their top five players. Unfortunately the player they lost, Miguel Delgado, was the top player on the team. Delgado qualified for NCAA Regionals, a first for an Irish men’s golfer since 2014. Thankfully, the returning players have stepped up, and a top recruit has adjusted quickly to college golf.

This year’s team is led by Hunter Ostrom who hails from Eagle, Idaho. Ostrom was in and out of the Irish five last year, but has been the team’s top player this season. The senior had a strong summer winning the Southwestern Amateur, Eastern Amateur, and qualifying for the US Amateur at Pinehurst. Junior Davis Chatfield from Massachusetts, the team’s number two, qualified for the last two US Amateurs. He reached the round of 32 at the 2018 championship at Pebble Beach. Irish number four, sophomore Andrew O’Leary from Massachusetts had a solid freshman season in 2018/19, and captured the nearby Rhode Island Amateur over the summer.

Number five Davis Lamb, a senior from Maryland, was a consistent performer all of last year.  He won his home state Maryland Open this summer, and had solid finishes in a number of other events. Although he’s been out of the Irish top five this fall, sophomore Taichi Kho of Hong Kong was a contributor most of last season. This summer, he played a variety of SE Asian events, and notched top-5 finishes in both the Singapore and Malaysian Amateurs.

A Fabulous Freshman Joins the Fold

The most exciting summer, however, belonged to freshman Palmer Jackson. Before joining the Irish, the top-20 recruit from outside Pittsburgh had an exceptional junior career. Notably, he won an AJGA event, and qualified for both the US Junior and US Amateurs in 2018 and 2019. After making the round of 16 at this summer’s Junior Amateur at Inverness Club, Jackson turned his eyes on the US Amateur. The incoming freshman shot two over par over 36 holes around Pinehurst #4 and #2 to finish 19th in stroke play and qualify for match play.

In the 64 player match play bracket, Jackson kept up the strong play. He beat TCU’s Hayden Springer 3 & 2 in the first round, then knocked off Jacob Solomon, an All-SEC player from Auburn, 1 up. In the round of 16, Palmer won 2 up against Stanford All American and US Walker Cupper Isaiah Salinda. Sadly, in the quarterfinals, Jackson lost 3 & 2 to Wake Forest’s John Augenstein, the current #6 amateur in the world. Although he came up two wins short of a Masters invite, the quarterfinal finish exempts him into the 2020 championship at Bandon Dunes. It also tied the best finish at the US Am by an Irish golfer. If you were lucky enough to be in attendance at the USC game, you may have seen Jackson getting recognized on the field during the second half.

After the strong summer by almost the whole team, the team looked ready to turn heads in the fall. In the next post coming next week, we’ll recap the season thus far, and look ahead to the spring season.