Golf Prepares for Star Match Against Navy

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Entering the weekend on a three-year winning streak, the Army West Point golf team travels to Annapolis, Md., to face service academy rival Navy in the annual Star Match. The match will be held at the Naval Academy Golf Club Oct. 16-17 with tee-times slated for 9 a.m. both mornings.

"We all know the Star Match against Navy means the world to these young Cadets," said head coach Brian Watts. "We still try to treat it as another event, but it is unique in that we play four-ball on Friday and single matches on Saturday. Overall you still have to hit the shots to get the points."

Army increased its winning streak over Navy to three-straight with a historic 10-1 victory over the Mids at the West Point Golf Course last fall. The nine point difference was the largest margin of victory in the history of the rivalry.

Navy holds a 41-33-1 advantage over the Cadets in the all-time series, but Army has won four of the last six meetings with the Midshipmen.

"The Naval Academy course is very similar to the West Point Golf Course," said Watts. "The greens are quite severe, there are a lot of undulations and it puts a premium on putting the ball on the fairway. The course is always in great condition down there and we are just fired up to play."

The 18-hole Naval Academy course features 6,611 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 71. The course rating is 71.7 and it has a slope rating of 128.

"There is nothing I can say to the team to fire them up," Watts said. "They are ready to go and are playing some great golf so we are looking forward to going down there to get the job done. We have to play our game and not get caught up in any of the emotions. Golf is a very emotional game and you have to be in control of those emotions. We have talked about it all week so we are feeling great about where we are at."

The Black Knights will utilize a full roster including firsties Marcus Plunkett and Eric Peng, cows Peter Kim and Justin Pagila, yearling Dean Sakata and plebes Parker Harris, Matt Plunkett and Nick Turner.

"It is going to be awesome to have everyone competing together this weekend," Watts commented. "Everyone is fired up, and overall it has made the team stronger. We have gone through the fall without two of our top-five guys, for us to all play together for the first time this year is exciting for the team."

The event will mimic the Ryder Cup format. Friday consists of four, four-ball match play where the winner of the two-on-two battles will be determined by the team member with the lowest score on each hole. Saturday's docket includes seven individual matches. The first team to claim six points wins the Star.

"We are going to feed off what happened last weekend during the Bush Cup at Winged Foot where we experienced match play," Watts explained. "The guys are playing with a lot of confidence and I felt like we learned a lot from last weekend, and the younger guys got experience going into this weekend."

Black Knights had some practice in match play last weekend during the Bush Cup against Yale at the prestigious Winged Foot Golf Club. Army trailed after the foursomes round, but rallied back tie the match, 6-6, off a chip in by senior captain Marcus Plunkett in the rain.

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Golf Prepares for Star Match Against Navy

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Players Mentioned

Parker Harris

Peter Kim

Justin Pagila

Eric Peng

Marcus Plunkett

Matt Plunkett

Dean Sakata

Nick Turner

Army West Point Athletics