STARKVILLE — Peng Pichaikool was given no welcoming period to collegiate golf. The average student that enters universities in the fall can compete in limited fall tournaments, doing so knowing the championship season isn’t until the spring.
Pichaikool came to Mississippi State in January. He didn’t need a grace period.
Pichaikool’s first semester as a Bulldog started with a tied-for-third finish in the Mobile Sports Authority Intercollegiate. It will end with his appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the only Buildog to be invited as an individual. Pichaikool was placed in the Baton Rouge regional and will begin play at LSU’s University Club Monday.
“He hits the ball so long and so straight, he can overpower any golf course,” said former MSU coach Clay Homan, who announced his retirement after the Southeastern Conference Championships.
Even with that skillset, the transition to college golf has not been as easy as Pichaikool’s results have made it seem.
“The language barrier was not hard, but still the culture is different, getting adjusted to the food,” Homan said. “The time demands of getting up in the morning, working out, going to class, practicing golf in the afternoon and studying at night is hard for anybody, much less someone who’s still growing.”
While in his native Thailand, Pichaikool went out of his way to surround himself with, “professional guys,” so the atmosphere of serious golf training wasn’t a shock to him. He actually reacted well to it: Homan said Pichaikool added 10 pounds in his first semester with MSU.
The academics didn’t faze him, either: Pichaikool arrived at MSU in January because he graduated Thailand’s first level of high school early and it just so happened to correspond with an opening on MSU’s roster, so he elected to go straight to college as opposed to the upper level of Thailand’s high school system.
It was American golf courses that gave Pichaikool something to work on.
“The rough, the grass, everything is different,” he said. “You have to be more precise in how you hit the ball compared to Thailand.”
The weather didn’t help either, as America forced Pichaikool to play golf in the cold for the first time in his life.
He clearly gained his bearings quickly, having finished third in his debut. Pichaikool credits Homan for teaching him course management, among other things.
From there, Pichaikool only got better. In his next event, the Southwestern Invitational, he placed in the top 15 in a field with six teams in the top 50 at the time. He finished the season with top 10s in three consecutive events: runner-up in the Lone Star Invitational, tied for fourth in the Old Waverly Collegiate Championship and tied for seventh at the SEC Championships.
Homan considers what he did at the SEC Championships most impressive, given back spasms kept Pichaikool away from the practice round.
“We didn’t know up until tee time if he was going to play,” Homan said.
Pichaikool did it all with a weakness he and Homan agree on: putting. It’s been a focus point of Pichaikool’s freshman season, one that he hoped to improve while nursing his back to health in the layoff before the Baton Rouge regional.
Even with it, Pichaikool approaches his first NCAA Tournament as he did his first season of college golf: with no fear.
“I feel really confident right now.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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