NOTEWORTHY
Tournament History: The Big 12 Championship started in 1997 and has been held at Prairie Dunes Country Club 14 previous times. In Cincinnati’s first Big 12 Championship at Whispering Pines Golf Club in 2012, the Bearcats finished ninth as Ty Gingerich matched TCU's Gustav Frimodt and Oklahoma State's Preston Stout for the individual crown. The Bearcats then placed 11th last season at Southern Hills Country Club.
Standouts Charles Howell III, Hunter Mahan, Anthony Kim, Rickie Fowler, Scottie Scheffler and Ludvig Aberg are previous champions of the event.
The Course: Prairie Dunes Country Club, playing as a 7,025-yard par-70, is an inland links course that opened in 1937 and was originally designed by Perry Maxwell as a nine-hole layout before Maxwell’s son James Press Maxwell extended the course to an 18-hole design almost 20 years later. In 2004, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw renovated the course, which features sand dunes, prairie grasses, yucca plants, cottonwoods and consistent wind.
The Field: Along with Cincinnati, the 16-team field includes Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, UCF, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, Utah and West Virginia.
BEARCATS IN 2025-26
At the conclusion of the regular season, senior Ryan Ford leads the Bearcats with a 70.10 scoring average and four top-10 finishes, while sophomore Leo Wessel sits second among regulars with a 71.72 average and three top-10s. Senior Connor McNeely also has participated in all 10 events with a 73.17 average. Senior Rylan Wotherspoon and freshman Brayden Miller have played in all but one event, notching a 72.92 and 72.00 scoring average, respectively.
Ford has played 14 of his 29 rounds under par, while five of Miller’s last 12 have been played under par.
As a team, the Bearcats, have top-five finishes in half of their 10 tournaments, including a victory at the Bearcat Invitational Sept. 15-16 at Coldstream Country Club.
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