The men’s golf team is gearing up for five tournaments this fall with high hopes to improve their season records from last year.Beginning this weekend at the Kuhn Invitational [Allegheny College], the Point Park University Pioneers will be teeing off for the first time this season at The Country Club in Meadville, Pa. It is a par 72, which is 6,628 yards.Austin Elder, a sophomore business marketing major kicked off his season early on Sept. 5 with teammate, Michael Caris at a small tournament near Point Park’s campus.”It was a charity type thing,” Elder said.The team practices every Monday through Friday at 6:30 a.m. at the Quicksilver Golf Course in Midway, Pa. Although the team has five tournaments this fall, their most important season to look forward to is in the spring, in which they typically have seven tournaments.”Our conference championship is our biggest tournament,” Elder said.The men’s golf team for the 2008-2009 season rostered six golfers, and with this year’s additions they will double the size of their team. With six new recruits (four freshman and two transfers), a general consensus from the team is that they will be “really good.”Freshman additions include Chris Cichra, James Daley, Chris Bowen and Caris.The transfer students includeAlex Bernardini, a native of Mexico and a previous student of South Carolina-Aiken and Brad Frank, a transfer from Duquesne University, originally from Pleasant Hills, Pa.”The competition is a lot better [than high school],” Caris, a freshman sport, arts and entertainment management major said. “Austin Elder is a pretty good golfer and leader. He offers a lot of help for the freshman especially if we are not playing well.”For Aris, the transition from high school golf to college golf was “not that hard,” and he believes that his coach last year prepared him.”It’s going to be more exciting, we have a lot of new kids and a lot more fun,” Elder said. “We should beat 50 percent of the division one schools; our team this year is good.”Although last year at their opening tournament the team placed at 18 out of 18 teams at the Kuhn Invitational, they believe that with their new additions they will greatly improve.In addition to this weekend’s tournament, the schedule for the fall season includes the Penn State-Behrend Invitational, the La Roche College Invitational, the Westminster Fall College Invitational and the Grove City College Invitational.Daley, a freshman accounting major of also believes the transfer students will be a great help to the golf program and is looking forward to the season.”Our first tournament in the fall is going to be the most important one,” Daley said. “There are a lot of good teams.”The team plans to begin their next season during spring break by participating in a tournament in Flordia.