The talent pipeline from Ontario which has meant so much to the continued success of the Detroit Titans golf team was flowing again as a pair of outstanding Canadian prospects – Kyle Benford (Amherstview, ON/Holy Cross) and Brendan Leonard (Cambridge, ON/St. Benedict) – signed National Letters of Intent with UDM. Veteran head coach Mark Engel made the announcement today.
Both newcomers – who were ranked among the Top 50 juniors in their country at the end of the 2009 season by the Royal Canadian Golf Association – will enter UDM as freshmen next fall, joining a Titan program that has won five Horizon League championships while also posting three runner-up finishes in the last 11 years. There are currently five other Ontarians on the Detroit roster this season.
Leonard finished 18th on the RCGA’s final Junior Order of Merit thanks to a string of 2009 successes. He was runner-up at the International Junior Masters this summer after reaching the semi-finals one year earlier. He was also sixth at the Ontario Junior Spring Classic, sixth at the International Greens and Dreams Invitational, 10th at the CN Future Links Ontario and 11th at the Ontario Junior Championship this year. Additionally, Leonard will become the first Titan ever to have won an American Junior Golf Association tournament, having captured the 2009 AJGA Flossmoor Junior Open in July.
Benford was ranked 50th by the RCGA following a summer in which he came in third at the CN Future Links Quebec Championship and 36th at the Canadian Junior. He was also a quarter-finalist at the Ontario Match Play Championship and finished fourth at the Eastern Ontario Amateur. A former high school teammate of current Detroit freshman Simon Reyers, Benford finished sixth individually at the 2009 OFSSA provincial championships, leading Holy Cross to a tie for second place as a team.
“Graduation will be hitting us hard this year with three seniors on our roster, but I think signing Brendan and Kyle will help offset our losses and keep us as strong as ever over the next four years. They’re both excited to be a part of our program, and I’m just as excited they’re joining us. I was really impressed with both of the guys when I first saw them play and even more so as I got to know them,” Engel, who’s in his 20th year as the Titans’ head coach, said.
“They had a lot of success on the course this summer in particular, and they’re going to keep getting better as golfers, which is what you want. They’re strong players and good students, too. I think they’ll bring a lot to our golf program next fall.”
The Titans placed in the Top 6 in all of their four fall tournaments, and will resume play in Florida in early March as they compete in the Mission Inn Spring Fling, hosted by St. John’s University.
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