The Claremnot-Mudd-Scripps men’s golf team won its first NCAA Division III National Championship on May 13, 2016 at the Midvale Country Club in Penfield, N.Y., all while carrying a 2015 Patriot All-America golf bag.
CMS competed directly with the defending national champions Methodist in the final round pairings. Methodist went wire-to-wire atop the Division III Bushnell Golfweek Coaches Poll by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) and was a clear favorite for the 2016 title.
Jonathan Shaw, who came in at a tie for 21st with a 79 in the final round at the NCAA tournament, played in the Patriot All- America event in 2015 and the team decided to use the bag as part of the military tribute program for the spring season.
Hometown: Burwell, Nebraska
Branch of Service: Army
Rank: Sergeant
Story: Posthumously promoted to Staff Sergeant, Kenneth E. Locker Jr., 28, of Wakefield, Nebraska, was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in Sadah, Iraq. He and nine others were killed on April 23, 2007, in a suicide truck bombing. Born and raised in Burwell, Nebraska, Locker enlisted in the military in 1997 while he was still in high school. He spent three years in the Army, then two years in the National Guard before re-enlisting in the Army. Locker was injured in Iraq in the fall of 2006 by a land mine and was awarded a Purple Heart. Locker was an outdoorsman who loved hunting, fishing and his family. He lived by the motto, “Life is but a dream, make it whatever you wish.” He left behind two sisters and three children.