Knowing the upcoming weather conditions at the Mid-American Conference tournament could be an issue, University of Toledo men’s golf coach Jeff Roope was preaching a fast start for his golfers.
Toledo senior Duncan McNeill, who is used to playing in poor weather conditions since he was a kid in Scotland, took the advice and seized the MAC title in a rain-shortened tournament.
McNeill shot a 5-under 139 (71-68) over his 36 holes at the par-72 Club Walden course in Aurora, Ohio. When rain canceled the final 18 holes, McNeill earned medalist honors by three strokes over Kent State’s Gisli Sveinbergsson.
“We played a practice round there last fall, and weather was quite similar,” McNeill said. “So the only time I played the course was in similar conditions, which was pretty nice. I changed my game plan a little bit, because it was so wet. It was pretty strange because the final round got canceled. I played my last round and hit my last putt, and I didn’t know I was going to win. So it was strange, but it was also pretty cool.”
McNeill advanced to the NCAA regionals in Simpsonville, Ky. Play at the University of Louisville Golf Club begins Monday and runs through Wednesday.
“Being able to play in the NCAA tournament is the pinnacle of what you are trying to accomplish during the year,” Roope said. “For him to play his best golf at the end of the year and catapult himself into the best of the best, it’s a pretty exciting time right now.”
McNeill said he played many sports as a kid in Scotland, but really enjoyed the social side of golf and loved being out on the course with his friends. He said his summers were filled with travel all throughout the country for golf tournaments, and the courses in Scotland spurred his creativity as a golfer.
When McNeill was 16 or 17 years old, he had made up his mind that he wanted to come to the United States and play collegiate golf.
He originally attended McNeese State, where he knew two players from Scotland at the time. In both of his years at McNeese State, McNeill was third on the team in stroke average. Both years, the Cowboys won the Southland Conference title and earned a trip to NCAA regionals as a team.
McNeill wants to build off of that experience, but he knows it will be a little bit different going as an individual this time around.
“When you are down there as a team, you are thinking about your teammates and how you don’t want to let them down,” McNeill said. “As an individual, I think I won’t be as bothered with that kind of thing, and I will be able to play a little bit freer.”
After two years at McNeese State, McNeill decided he would like to come north and settled on Toledo, where he had a friend from Scotland on the team in Joe Bryce.
As a junior at Toledo, McNeill was second on the team in stroke average at 73.9 and ended up being a second-team All-MAC honoree.
McNeill has improved in his senior season and led the team in stroke average this season at 74.2. He is certainly playing his best golf at the right time.
Coming from Wittenberg, Roope took over the Rockets program last year and didn’t know much about McNeill, who was coming in as a transfer.
“I didn’t really know much about him coming to Toledo except that we had a transfer coming in,” Roope said. “Once he got here, you could tell that he was a pretty special talent — his golf swing, his touch, his feel, his distance. He’s in one of the very small percentages of what college golfers can do. He is a four or five percent guy in that 95 percent of the guys in college golf don’t have the abilities that he does. We’ve just been waiting for him to piece it all together and see what he can accomplish, and he did that this year.”
McNeill was opportunistic at the MAC championships, but now he has a chance to prove that his rain-shortened title was no fluke.
“I think it’s a really cool way to end my college career,” McNeill said. “I’m really happy, and I’d love to play well and head to nationals. That would be a perfect ending.”
First Published May 13, 2019, 5:00 p.m.
