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The Point men and women’s golf teams will be competing in their first tournament of the season at Point Golf Club on Saturday and Sunday.

The Point men’s team is ranked 14th in the NAIA preseason poll, and they’re coming off of a year where they finished seventh in the national championship.

The women’s team is unranked, and they failed to make the national championship last year.

Both teams opened the season with the Skyhawk invitational last year. The men’s team finished first, and the women’s team finished second.

The Skyhawks’ men’s golf team is coached by Maddux Lytle, who is entering his second season as the head coach.

“We’ve got a pretty solid team,” Lytle said. “We have some depth. We have some freshmen coming in that are really performing early. We count five on the A team. Everyone is going to play this weekend.”

Each team competing in the invitational this weekend will have five golfers each for men and women’s teams. The lowest combined score of the five golfers will determine where a team finishes.

Point’s entire team will play in the tournament, but only their A team will have scores that count.

“I believe the other players have the talent too to win if it was three teams that counted,” Lytle said.

“We have a lot of good players this year. Luckily, it’s not a political game. It all comes down to qualifying. It keeps everybody competitive.”

Each team will play four rounds in total, and there will be nine total groups of five at the invitational.

Luckily for Point, they can get as many rounds of practice as they want since they’ll be playing on their home course.

“You always want to have the best home field advantage,” Lytle said. “We’ve been playing out here a lot. They’ll just be hitting balls and doing some competitions to hopefully get a win this weekend.”

Lytle held qualifying this past week to determine which five players will be on the A team.

He also feels like playing on their own course will give them a major advantage, especially with how difficult it is.

“There are a lot of tee shots out here that are tricky,” Lytle said.

“There are a lot of tricky greens. A lot of approach shots don’t play the way they look. It’s always a big advantage to host. It’s not the longest course, but everything is as green as it can be out here.”

The Skyhawks are returning two seniors who will be key golfers throughout the whole season.

“We’re bringing back Brendan Porter, who led after three rounds in the national championship last year,” Lytle said.

“We’re also bringing back Trevor Poole, who won here last year and won at the Keiser event. We have three freshmen playing in the invitational. Jacob Joseph just set the course record here.”

Other key freshmen are Michael Thomas and Phillip Froden.

The Skyhawks’ men’s team will look to win the Appalachian Athletic Conference for the first time since 2020.

The women’s team will try to finish better than seventh in the AAC and reach the national championship.

They last reached the national championship in 2017. Head coach Gregory Boling will be entering his second year.