Coastal Carolina is hosting college golf programs from far and wide to mark the 25th playing of the Michael A. Marino Classic.
The tournament being played Sunday through Tuesday at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club features schools from three of the four contiguous U.S. time zones.
“The diversity of the field is pretty cool, just having teams coming in from various places in the country,” said CCU men’s golf coach Jacob Wilner, who previously coached at Nevada. “That was kind of my goal. I wanted to have teams from everywhere. I could easily just invite teams from the East Coast.
“But I think we put on a good show and I think the golf course – from professional staff, maintenance, food and beverage, and volunteers – is a great showcase for college golf.”
The event, which was previously known as the General Hackler Championship before being renamed last fall in honor of Marino, is free to attend as a spectator and the public is welcome.
Eleven of the 16 participating teams are ranked in Scoreboard by Clippd’s national top 100 rankings. They are Louisville at 33, UNLV (37), Arkansas-Little Rock (47), Florida-Gulf Coast (50), Charleston (71), N.C. State (72), Kansas State (76), Michigan (81), Liberty (85), CCU (86) and Missouri (92).
Other participating teams are North Florida, Kent State, Furman, Louisiana and Baylor, as the event has a total of 90 players.
The Marino also includes a college-am on Saturday that is sold out with 18 teams of amateurs.
Auburn won the 2025 tournament to join Wake Forest, Arkansas, East Tennessee State and North Florida as two-time champions of the event. Auburn senior Brendan Valdes won the 2025 individual title.
Coastal is coming off a ninth-place finish in the John Hayt Collegiate Invitational at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, this past Monday. The top six finishers all rank in the top 21 in the country, including Nos. 1 and 2 Virginia and Auburn, and South Carolina and Clemson finished just ahead of CCU in seventh and eighth, respectively.
CCU finished ahead of three teams ranked in the top 31 in the country.
“You’re not normally too, too happy about a ninth-place finish, but that field was off the charts good,” Wilner said.
Wilner said CCU will start junior Jack Lee of England, senior Max Bengtsson of Sweden, sophomore Drew Sykes of England, and a pair of freshmen from South Carolina in Harrison James of Chapin and Lucas Arntsen of Pawleys Island, who attended high school in Minnesota. The four best scores of five count toward the team score every round.
Competing as individuals will be freshman Santiago Schele of Chile, sophomore Coleman Ferguson of Columbia, and senior Owen Kim of Ontario, Canada.
Lee, who earned his first collegiate win in the Myrtle Beach Golf Trips Intercollegiate at the Grande Dunes Resort Course in September, Bengtsson and Sykes have largely cemented their spots in the starting lineup with their more consistent play.
Though Wilner said he prefers constant competition for spots.
“I don’t guarantee anything,” Wilner said. “I think it’s very important to create a competitive environment. We qualify and we play for spots. It’s safe to say those three guys are likely to travel. But I want everybody on this team to be hungry. You don’t want to take things for granted.”
This past week in The Hayt, Lee tied for 13th at 6-under par, Sykes tied for 34th and Bengtsson tied for 44th.
“Jack Lee is just playing fantastic golf,” Wilner said. “Max Bengtsson is just so solid. Drew Sykes has just really improved and has done a very good job in the three-hole.”
The other two starting spots have fluctuated more.
Schele and James started this past week but Arntsen finished ahead of both as an individual in a tie for 36th.
“I really like this team,” Wilner said. “The chemistry is good. We’re a little bit young on the bottom part of the starting five but they’ve put together some good rounds. With freshmen, there’s a lot going on. You’ve got to figure out a lot of stuff, how to manage school, how to manage practice, how to manage time management, and they’re done a good job.”
In addition to this past week’s result, CCU has finished third or fourth in four of its other five tournaments in the fall and spring.
“I do like this team and I think we’re in a good spot, not necessarily ranking-wise yet,” Wilner said. “Our next three events, we have the ability to play well and move up in the rankings and see what we can do in [Sun Belt] Conference tournament.
“They’re just a good group of dudes. They get along very well. The stuff that comes out of their mouth sometimes is just hilarious. . . . They really love each other, they motivate each other, they work their butts off and they’re having a great time. At the end of the day I know rankings are important, but the fact that they’re having just an incredible college experience to me is very important too.”
The Chants should have a home-course advantage this week, as even the freshmen have played The Dunes Club 15 or more times, Wilner said, and the team is staying nearby at the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes. CCU’s players have also known the hole locations for each of the three rounds for about two weeks.
“This is the whole point of hosting a home event, is to try to get a little bit of an advantage,” Wilner said.
The host Dunes Club is in good shape as it prepares to host the PGA Tour’s ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic in two months.
“The golf course is in wonderful shape,” Wilner said. “The weather in the last week has really helped it pop at The Dunes.”
The tournament features volunteer ambassadors with each playing group to provide live scoring and assists players with available snacks and drinks.
The tournament is now named in honor of the late Mike Marino, who was an active member of The Dunes Club for more than 30 years before his passing in 2024. His son, businessman Patrick Marino, has financially supported the CCU golf program and helped bring celebrities to the Oneflight Myrtle Beach Classic Pro-Am last May.
The former Hackler has been played on four different courses since its inception in 2002 at the Grande Dunes Resort Course. It moved to TPC Myrtle Beach for 12 years – with the exception of 2012 when it was played at the private DeBordieu Colony Club when TPC was unavailable – and has been at The Dunes Club every year since and including 2015.
