The Western Illinois University men’s golf team will finish its regular season at the Hawkeye Invitational in Riverside, Iowa, beginning April 20. The Leathernecks are set to compete in the three-round tournament hosted by Iowa on the Blue Top Ridge course.
This event is significant as it marks the last competition before postseason play for Western Illinois, which participates at the NCAA Division I level and regularly hosts events such as the WIU Intercollegiate, according to the official website. The team’s performance throughout this season has shown improvement, most recently during their home tournament where Owen Howe led with a tie for seventh place and Bayden Hubacher recorded a hole-in-one.
The Leathernecks are members of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC), as noted by their official website. In preseason OVC polls ahead of 2026, Western Illinois was predicted to finish eleventh out of conference teams. Sophomore Owen Howe was named among OVC Players to Watch following his strong results last year.
Returning players include Hubacher and Nathan Tillman—both played all four events last season—and Mateo Rascon from Burlington, Iowa. Rascon’s best previous finish was a tie for eighteenth at last year’s OVC Championships; Howe also returns after tying for thirty-eighth in that event.
At this week’s Hawkeye Invitational, Western Illinois will face programs such as Drake, Valparaiso, Missouri State, Kansas City, North Dakota State, US Air Force Academy, Iowa, South Dakota State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, DePaul, Omaha and Southern Illinois-Carbondale. These teams represent various conferences and have demonstrated competitive scoring averages ranging from low-270s up through just above 300 per round in recent tournaments.
Western Illinois men’s golf operates within the university’s intercollegiate athletics framework and uses Harry Mussatto Golf Course as its home facility according to information provided by its official website. Notable alumni like Wyatt Spier and Andrew Blackburn have earned recognition both athletically and academically through their participation with Leatherneck Men’s Golf.
