Dumont de Chassart and Kuhl named PING All-Americans

Dumont de Chassart and Kuhl named PING All-Americans.

Yesterday, the Golf Coaches Association honored two Fighting Illini golfers as PING All-Americans. Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Tommy Kuhl, the backbone of the 2023 golf team, were two of the 11 golfers honored on May 31st. Consequently, Illinois was the only program with two first-team All-Americans on the list.

Illini men’s golf is no stranger to All-Americans. Dumont de Chassart and Kuhl are the eighth and ninth All-Americans in the program’s history, respectively. PGA golfer and Illini legend Steve Stricker was the first All-American in 1988 and 1989. Every other All-American has come under the tutelage of head coach Mike Small.

Dumont de Chassart and Kuhl’s impact

Dumont de Chassart might be the best golfer of them all. He is a three-time Big Ten Golfer of the Year, a two-time unanimous All-Big-Ten First Team Golfer, and a four-time All-Big Ten championship team performer. Also, Dumont de Chassart was a Nicklaus and Haskins Awards finalist this season. His All-American selection was his third (Dumont de Chassart was a Second-Team All-American in 2021 and 2022). The native Belgian was also the Les Bosltad Award winner, having the lowest stroke average through the conference championship. He finishes his career as the all-time leader with an 18-hole average of 70.82.

Fellow All-American Tommy Kuhl is no slouch himself. This season was his first as an All-American. However, this was his second All-Region and All-Big Ten First-Team selection. In addition, Kuhl was second behind Dumont de Chassart in stroke average this season (70.12). The Morton, Illinois native was selected to represent Team USA in the Arnold Palmer Cup this year. His best tourney of the year was the Hal Williams Collegiate, where he tied his career low at 65 (-6) and set his 54-hold low of 203 (-10). Kuhl tied the team lead with par or better in 29 of 39 rounds this season.