By Jeff Barnes
The Spartans bring back two of the conference’s top young golfers for 2018-19 in James Piot and Kaleb Johnson. Piot (Canton) was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year last season – and recently won the 54-hole stroke play GAM Championship – while Johnson (Naples, Fla.) was an All-Big Ten second team selection. Johnson recorded the fifth-best single-season scoring average in school history last season (72.62) and had three top-three finishes and five in the top 10 as a sophomore.
Kaleb Johnson MSU
MSU also returns junior Andrew Walker (Battle Creek, two-time Mr. Golf in Michigan and medalist of this summer’s Michigan Amateur) and sophomore Zach Rosendale (Mr. Golf 2017, St. Johns) from a team that posted a 291.2 scoring average last season and seven top-five finishes, including a win at the Big Ten Match Play Championship.
Head coach Casey Lubahn will be entering his eighth season as head coach.
“This is going to be an exciting year for us,” he said. “We have a lot of great players returning including; Kaleb Johnson, James Piot and Andrew Walker, each having great summer tournament finishes. With the addition of Troy Taylor, a top 25 recruit and No 1 player in Ohio (made the cut the 2015 and 2017 PGA Junior Championships), and transfer Donnie Trosper from UCF – not to mention a bevy of experienced players on our roster – we are going to have a competitive group at home and on the road.
“Our expectations are the same as they always are – to compete in the classroom, on the golf course and in practice every day. If we do that, we can contend for a Big Ten Championship and compete deep in the NCAA tournament.”
