Marquette golf claimed its sixth Big East Championship Monday afternoon after beating the field by 11 strokes at Callawassie Island in Okatie, South Carolina.
The Golden Eagles’ strong second round propelled them past the runner-up Xavier Musketeers en route to the fifth title under MU head coach Steve Bailey. Four of Marquette’s six titles have come at Callawassie, which uses its Magnolia Course as the front nine and Dogwood Course as the back nine and has hosted the tournament seven times.
Marquette shot 8-under as a team on Sunday during the second round to have a five-shot advantage entering the final 18 holes on Monday. The Sunday charge was led by senior Max Lyons, who fired a 5-under 67. Lyons finished tied for seventh individually after posting a 2-under 70 on Monday.
Junior Johan Widal and first-year Vincent Cervantes added a 3-under round of 69 and a 1-under round of 71 on Sunday. Widal was the only Golden Eagle to shoot under par in the first two rounds of the tournament.
Lyons has been a top-20 finisher at the Big East Championship in all four years at Marquette.
The Golden Eagles closed the tournament with a 6-under final round. Senior Patrick Adler posted a 5-under 67 and was tied as the low finisher for Marquette. He and Widal both finished the tournament at 3-under to tie for fourth individually.
Marquette held the lead after each round of the tournament. Sophomore Mason Schmidtke was the individual leader after 18 holes, firing a 5-under 67 in the first round. Schmidtke finished tied for 13th at one-over-par after shooting 4-over 76 and 2-over 74 rounds on Sunday and Monday.
UConn sophomore Alex Heard was the Big East’s individual champion, shooting 11-under over the three rounds, including a tied-for-low tournament round of 6-under 66 on Sunday.
Up next
The Golden Eagles will find out which region they will compete in for the national championship during the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Selection Show at 12 p.m. CST on Golf Channel.
Marquette last competed in the NCAA Regional in 2023 in the Auburn region at Auburn University Club. The top five teams advanced to the national championship and Marquette finished 10th. Max Lyons was the only member of the current team to compete in 2023, and was the team’s low finisher at 2-over-par, good for tied-for-17th. Auburn is a host site for this year’s NCAA Regionals.
This story was written by Trevor Hilson. He can be reached at trevor.hilson@marquette.edu or @hilsontrevor on Twitter/X.