Oklahoma State University Athletics
1998-99 Men's Golf Outlook
June 21, 1999 | Cowboy Golf
October 14, 1998
The 1997-98 OSU men's golf team was one of the youngest in school history.
In 1998-99, the song remains the same. After using a lineup that included two freshmen, two sophomores and a senior last season, the Cowboys will again rely on youth in the coming year. Three regulars return, including two 1997-98 third-team All-Americans, sophomore Charles Howell and junior Edward Loar. Also back from the team's usual five-man squad is junior Landry Mahan.
Loar spent part of last season ranked No. 1 in the nation, avoiding a sophomore jinx after two years ago he became the first true freshman in OSU's storied history to lead the team in stroke average.
His stay as the only Cowboy with that honor was short-lived, though, as Howell had a fabulous spring in 1998 and became the second freshman to lead the team's scoring chart. After failing to crack the top 30 in any fall tournament, Howell had six top-10 finishes in nine spring events.
Mahan improved dramatically over the course of the year, capping his season with 70s on the final two days of the NCAA Championship to help OSU hold on to its fourth-place finish. He finished the season with the highest national ranking (No. 84) of his career.
The Cowboys lost two-time All-American Bo Van Pelt to graduation and freshman regular Boyd Summerhays to a two-year mission in Argentina, all of which means that the regular spots vacated by those two are very much up in the air.
Sophomore Peter Davidson played in five tournaments last season and figures to have a shot at one of the two remaining spots; he and senior T.J. Nance, a Stillwater native who has played in six tournaments during his career, are the only other players on OSU's roster with any experience.
Redshirt freshman Bret Guetz, the brother of former OSU All-American Brian Guetz, had a pair of top-10 finishes in AJGA events in 1997; he will try to crack the team's top five this season.
In addition, the Cowboys have added a trio of true freshmen - Anders Hultman, Billy Lowry and Nick Seymour.
Hultman, the third Swedish signee in the past six years at OSU, will join countryman Davidson in trying to follow the trail that former Cowboy All-American Leif Westerberg blazed during his four-year career. Hultman has shown flashes of brilliance in his junior career, including a course-record 65 at the European Tour Scandinavian Masters this past summer. Lowry, an Ada, Okla., native, was the runner-up at the state amateur tournament in 1998 and won the Oak Hills Men's Invitational in 1996 and 1997.
Seymour hails from Tustin, Calif., the same hometown as OSU basketball player Doug Gottlieb. He pocketed three tournament victories during the summer of 1998, including the U.S. Junior Amateur qualifying tournament.
