With the spring season just around the corner for the UK men’s golf team, expectations are as high as they’ve been in quite a while. After narrowly missing the NCAA tournament last season and after a fall campaign that featured success, the Cats are looking to secure a bid in the NCAA tournament and make their mark on a national level. Why are the expectations so high for this team, then? European transfer Ben Stow, that’s why.

The #2 ranked European 21-and-under golfer is a self-proclaimed plus-5 handicap and for those of you that don’t know what that means I’ll put it as frank as possible. That’s really, really good. Stow, a transfer student from England that had to sit out in the fall, immediately becomes a key cog in the Kentucky lineup and has a set of lofty aspirations for himself:

“I’d like to be the best player on the team, have the lowest stroke average. I’d like to kind of get the team into the top-25 and make the NCAA tournament. On a personal level, I’d like to eventually get SEC Player of the Year and be an All-American.” Stow will have two seasons to reach his goals.

As far as making the NCAA tournament and reaching the top-25 goes, Stow’s work will play a vital part in that and the team isn’t too far away from that as it is. UK finished their fall run with 2nd place finishes at the St. Mary’s College Invitational in Monterey, CA, the Jack Nicklaus Invitational in Dublin, Ohio, and the Quarencia Cabo Collegiate in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico.

Stow participated in the UK alumni exhibition match over the weekend in Palm Beach, Florida and makes his true collegiate debut next month when the team kicks off their spring season in Mobile, Alabama.