Veterans Golfers Deliver Strong Scores as VGA Competition Takes Center Stage at Lakewood Golf Course

Improved course conditions and cooler late-August weather set the stage for a competitive Veterans Golfers Association event as Trey Long, Jacob Hawn, Michael Lemieux and other military veterans captured flight victories.

PHENIX CITY, Ala. | The Veterans Golfers Association returned to Lakewood Golf Course for a late-August competition that combined improving course conditions, lower scores and the camaraderie that has become a hallmark of VGA events across the South.

Players representing the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard competed across multiple flights, with golfers traveling from Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.

By the time the final scorecards were turned in, Trey Long, Jacob Hawn, Michael Lemieux, Dylan Earnest, James Hopper, Deandra Carlisle, Harold Tukes and Paul Forsythe had emerged as flight winners

The competition also featured four proximity contests, with John Johnson, Rodney Allen, Trey Long and Doug Fiest taking honors.

But the results told only part of the story.

For competitors returning to Lakewood after several years away, improvements to the golf course were immediately noticeable.

Lakewood's Course Improvements Draw Praise

Lakewood's fairways were in very good condition, while the greens showed significant improvement from the VGA's previous visit.

Players found putting surfaces with few noticeable imperfections, contributing to scoring conditions that helped produce lower numbers across several flights.

The course's continued progress made an impression on organizers.

SDSU Women’s Soccer Looks to Rebound Against Portland State as Aztecs Return to Sports Deck

San Diego State enters Sunday’s matchup at 1-1 after pushing No. 10 Washington in a defensive battle, while Portland State searches for its first victory of the 2026 season.

SAN DIEGO | San Diego State women’s soccer has already shown through its first two matches of 2026 that it can win with offense, defend under pressure, and compete with nationally ranked opposition.

Now, the Aztecs have an opportunity to turn those early flashes into momentum.

San Diego State (1-1) hosts Portland State (0-3) Sunday at 3 p.m. at the SDSU Sports Deck, as the Aztecs look to bounce back from a narrow loss to No. 10 Washington and secure their second victory of the young season.

The matchup will be streamed on the Pac-12 YouTube page, while early-arriving fans will receive a complimentary SDSU license plate frame. Admission to the Sports Deck is free.

For San Diego State, Sunday's match offers an opportunity to build on an encouraging opening stretch in which the Aztecs have demonstrated an ability to create scoring chances while limiting opponents defensively.

Bearing Witness: Michigan Student-Athletes Carry Lessons of Holocaust Remembrance Beyond Athletics

Wolverines join USC Shoah Foundation leadership program, visiting Washington and Auschwitz-Birkenau on a journey that challenged them to use the platform of college athletics to confront hate, antisemitism, and injustice.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. | For Michigan gymnast Sophie Parenti, the enormity of Auschwitz-Birkenau was difficult to comprehend in statistics alone.

So she started counting her steps.

Over roughly five hours at the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland, Parenti estimated she took approximately 10,000. In her mind, she began imagining each step as representing one person whose life had been taken.

"And that's just 10,000 people," Parenti said.

The exercise could not capture the full scale of the Holocaust, but it gave the University of Michigan student-athlete a deeply personal way to confront a history that suddenly was no longer confined to textbooks, documentaries or museum exhibits.

"You get there, and you feel the weight," Parenti said. "We step off the bus, and you feel the weight of that place immediately."

For Parenti and fellow Wolverines Jahzara Ranger and Penelopea Gordon, that weight became part of a larger lesson about leadership, responsibility, and what it means to have a platform in college athletics.

Michigan participated for the first time in the USC Shoah Foundation Student-Athlete Global Leadership Program, joining student-athletes from USC and UCLA for an immersive experience in Washington, D.C., and Krakow, Poland.

The journey centered on Holocaust education and confronting antisemitism and hate. But for the Michigan contingent, it also raised a distinctly modern question for college athletes:

What responsibility comes with having a voice?