
No. 1 MGCCC’s Goal: Repeat
PERKINSTON — No. 1 Mississippi Gulf Coast heads to Indiana this weekend for the 2025 NJCAA Division II Men's Golf Championship, aiming to become the first school in nearly a decade to repeat.
The Bulldogs, who top the Bushnell Golfweek NJCAA Division II Coaches Poll and Clippd National Collegiate Golf Rankings, won the school's second team title last year in Joplin, Mo.
This year's work has pointed toward securing a better finish at Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth than the team has in five previous national championships there.
"The biggest thing is the course conditions," Gulf Coast coach Brad Thornton said. "It's different grasses specifically, which affect the short game around those greens. There's not a lot of chipping areas, and there's a lot of rough that we're not used to. So we spent a lot of time putting in that work, and I feel like this is the most confident I've been for this trip to Indiana with a game plan in place and also having the players that can execute it."
Live scoring next week will be available at https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/237884/scoring/team. Gulf Coast will head up Saturday for practice rounds Sunday and Monday. The 72-hole event starts Tuesday, and they will have afternoon tee times in the first round.
Gulf Coast finished third at Swan Lake in 2014 and 2019, but they're hoping to become the first team since South Mountain in 2015-16 to repeat. The Cougars are ranked second in the country in both the coaches' and computer rankings.
The Bulldogs are 97-2-1 against NJCAA Division II competition, but they finished third in the preview event at Swan Lake in the fall. They finished behind No. 4 Parkland and No. 3 Murray State.
"Off the tee, it's very demanding," John Mark Mills said. "You have to be very patient off the tee, especially when you get out of place. The rough's very thick and hard. If you get out there and you get a bad lie in the rough, just put it up there to the front of the green and try to make a par. I think that's what cost us some shots in the preview, and the coaches have done a really good job of preparing a good game plan for that."
Mills (So., Pontotoc/Mike Bender Golf Academy) is one of four Bulldogs who won tournaments this year. The nation's third-ranked golfer got two wins, and tied with Stanley Campbell (So., London, England/Essex Golf College) for another and lost in a playoff.
Campbell, the top-ranked individual in the country, will be looking for his third win, as well. He finished tied for 20th at last year's national championship and sixth at the NJCAA Preview. Peyton Russell (So., Gautier/Gautier) tied for second last year, and he ranked sixth.
Ludvig Behring (So., Sollentuna, Sweden/Osterakers Gymnasium) won the MACCC Championship and is ranked 13th. He was fourth in the national preview in Indiana. Garner Seymour (So., Biloxi/Biloxi) has a pair of top-10 finishes, and he finished 15th at Swan Lake in the fall.
"I'm looking forward to finishing my career at Gulf Coast on a high note with all my powers," Campbell said. "I want to see if we can do what no one at Gulf Coast has done and win it back-to-back."
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