The Oral Roberts men’s program is about to launch a tournament that also involves the OU and Oklahoma State teams and is intended to become a staple on college golf’s fall schedule.
For the individual winner, there will be an exemption place in the field of a Korn Ferry Tour event: the Compliance Solutions Championship, played in June at OU’s Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman.
ORU’s inaugural 54-hole event — called The Clerico and sponsored by Oral Roberts University supporters John and Cheryl Clerico — will be played at The Oaks Country Club on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 24-25. Team and individual champions will be crowned at the conclusion of the 18-hole round session on Tuesday.
“John and Cheryl have really helped our golf program,” ORU athletic director Tim Johnson said. “Anything John gets involved with, he wants it to be the best. He wants to bring truly great collegiate golf to Tulsa. Everything we’re doing for the teams and coaches is first-class.”
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Joining ORU, OU and OSU in the first Clerico field of 14 Division I programs are New Mexico State, Texas State, South Alabama, Rice, Utah State, Missouri State, Texas-San Antonio, Northern Iowa, Stephen F. Austin, Southern Utah and UMKC (Missouri-Kansas City).
In the current Golfstat national golf rankings, the Sooners are 15th. OSU is 17th. New Mexico State and Texas State are ranked in the national top 80.
Johnson says ORU plans to develop a four-course rotation for The Clerico. The Oaks is next week’s site and the 2023 tournament will be played at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow. Johnson is working to add two additional elite courses in the Tulsa area.
“This will be a really good Oklahoma golf tournament,” Johnson said, “but we really want it to have a Tulsa identity.”
In 2019, the ORU women’s and men’s golf programs moved into an impressive new home: the 5,200-square-foot John and Cheryl Clerico Golf Complex. Within the complex is the Bill Brogden Golf Performance Center, which includes a technologically advanced putting studio and a strength-and-conditioning space.
On previously undeveloped ground that envelops the ORU golf building is the Bob Canada Short Game Facility. It includes a pitching green and target greens positioned at 100, 125 and 150 yards.
“If you’re Boone Pickens, you can write a check for whatever amount you want,” John Clerico said when ORU’s facility was completed in 2019. “For the amount of money I was working with, I wanted it to have a real impact . What can really make a difference?
“At ORU, where they have to work harder for everything, I felt like I could do that with the golf program.”
There are more than 300 NCAA Division I golf programs. With regard to facilities, Lance Watson says, “maybe 5% have what we have now.”
Watson coaches the Golden Eagle women and men.
“With the investment in our golf programs, we’re seeing greater results,” Johnson said. “John and Cheryl were the catalysts of all of that.”
Mark Lammert, an ORU graduate and the CEO of Compliance Solutions, is responsible for providing a Korn Ferry exemption for The Clerico’s individual champion.
Play is scheduled to start at 8 am both Monday and Tuesday. Thirty-six holes will be played on Tuesday. On both days, spectators are welcome to attend, and there is no admission.
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