Highland Oaks gets high marks hosting ASUN Conference tournament
Jon Johnson, Dothan Eagle | April 22, 2024
DOTHAN, AL - A college golf coach must be a jack of all trades at times.
Bellarmine University golf coach Bruce Brown retreated to the Highland Oaks clubhouse during the second round of the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) Men's Golf Championship tournament in Dothan on Monday searching for a Band-Aid.
"Where it rained yesterday the back of your shoe will get wet and I've got a guy with a heel thing … we're going to tape him up a little bit," Brown said.
It was a quick fix – much easier than the competition his team is facing during the three-day tournament which concludes Tuesday.
Bellarmine, located in Louisville, Ky., was at the bottom of the pack in the 12-team tournament after the first two days, but the experience of playing at Highland Oaks has left a favorable impression on the coach.
"It's a great, great golf course, especially for this competition," Brown said. "I think it's set up well for the ASUN Conference. Overall everything has just gone really well.
"The officiating crew has done a good job. Our ASUN Conference staff has done a really good job. So far, it's been a really good experience."
The schools making up the ASUN along with Bellarmine are Lipscomb, Central Arkansas, Queens, North Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, North Alabama, Kennesaw State, Jacksonville, Stetson, Austin Peay and Eastern Kentucky.
It's the first time the ASUN, based in Atlanta, has held its season-ending tournament in Dothan. The conference contracted with the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama and held the tournament at Magnolia Grove in Mobile last year.
"I think I like this golf course a little more … it's a little more hilly," Brown said in comparing the layouts in Mobile and Dothan. "I think the greens are a little more challenging.
"The distance is incredible. I mean, they can make this thing play almost at 7,800 yards. I think we played it at about 7,400 (Sunday), which is really long. I think this golf course is tougher with the pin locations, and so I think this is a great test for us."
Brown said the team made the 9 1/2-hour drive from Louisville instead of booking a flight. Bellarmine transitioned to Division I in all sports during the 2020-2021 school year and won't become eligible to compete in NCAA-sponsored tournaments until next year.
"The only negative is we couldn't get any flights close enough to where we wouldn't have a 2 or 2 ½ hour drive," Brown said. "A lot of us (schools) are going to miss an extra day of class due to travel time. We get off the golf course tomorrow (Tuesday) around 2 o'clock.
"By the time we get rolling and showered, then it's 3:30. So we will stop somewhere on the way home (for the night). We're the northern-most team in the conference."
Brown said the team has enjoyed its stay in Dothan – on and off the golf course.
"I didn't know that much about Dothan, but the players were just amazed at all of the restaurants that you guys have here," Brown said. "We always try to go places that we don't have at home … sometimes the mom and pop kind of places.
"Yesterday we needed to get golf off our minds, so we went over there to that amusement park (AdventureLand) and I put them in the go-karts and the boats that shoot water and they loved it. That was fun."
Morgan Huttenlocker, the administrator of men's and women's golf in the ASUN, said the conference has been happy with Highland Oaks.
"The course is absolutely beautiful … one of the prettier courses I've seen so far this year," Huttenlocker said. "It's in great condition and the coaches are really happy with it. It's a little bit more of a challenging course than the one last year and the scores reflected that."
Huttenlocker also gave the staff at Highland Oaks high marks.
"The facility and staff here have been absolutely amazing to work with," she said. "We had some possible bad weather rolling in yesterday (Sunday), so they made sure there were some evacuation carts all throughout the course yesterday for us. Thankfully, we didn't need them, but anything that has popped up we've quickly asked and they've got right on top of it."