Logan Schoepp’s wire-to-wire win comes with experience, and a little luck

With three holes left to play, Logan Schoepp pulled his tee shot on 16. He was lucky to avoid the nearby hazard.

On this third-to-last tee shot, the Bemidji State men’s golf junior was so close to a wire-to-wire NSIC Championship. He could taste it. But first, he needed a bounce.

“I hit a tree on that drive, and the ball kind of bounced into the rough,” Schoepp said. “It was fine. I didn’t go in the hazard, and I was a little surprised. I was like, ‘Well, you need a little bit of luck to win.’”

Schoepp saved bogey on 16, putting him at six-under with two holes left to play. Concordia-St. Paul’s Thomas Gutzmer took the lead on 16 with a birdie.

Schoepp, however, didn’t know where he stood. He was just looking for one more birdie to finish off a three-round tournament on a high note.

“I didn’t look at the leaderboard once,” he said. “I’ve never done that. I’ve always kind of said to myself that the way it plays out is how it plays out. I didn’t even know where I was at. I knew Thomas Gutzmer was playing really well, but I thought he was 10 deep.”

Schoepp got his birdie on 17, and a Gutzmer bogey locked the two in a tie at seven-under with one hole left. Gutzmer bogeyed again on 18, leaving Schoepp a championship putt.

When it went in, he still wasn’t sure where he stood.

“Gutzmer was the first guy’s hand that I shook, and he said, ‘Congrats,’” Schoepp said. “Then a couple of other people say congrats. I walked over to my mom and was like, ‘Did I win?’ She already knew.”

The NSIC Men’s Golf Championships saw Schoepp’s name at the top of the leaderboard after all three rounds. The junior out of Bismarck, North Dakota, made 13 birdies in three days to win his first individual conference championship.

“It’s tough, it’s a grind,” Schoepp said. “It’s a grind from the first hole to the 54th hole. Being in the lead is a little different. You kind of have a different mentality. I look back at the other times I’ve played with a lead. You get better at knowing what you want to do and what to avoid. You just have to look at it as another round, too.”

Two years ago, Schoepp was part of Bemidji State’s NSIC Championship-winning team. The Beavers finished in third as a team this year in what’s become a favorable course for BSU to play at in Blue Springs, Missouri.

“Everything builds up to that tournament,” Schoepp said. “It’s nice to get to the end and you can kind of just give it all you got. You get done, and you get a little time to reflect on a good year. I know the tournament is so much more hype; it’s just bigger. There’s a different atmosphere down there, and you feed off of that.”

Schoepp’s first round at Adams Point Golf Club was in the fall of 2022. Since then, he’s figured out how to play the routine host of the NSIC Championships.

“Counting them up, I’ve played that course probably 30 times now,” Schoepp said. “You know just about everything about the course. You know the winds, you know what you can expect to see. You know the tough holes, the ones you know you just have to par, and you also know the holes where you can put the gas pedal down and go. It’s just a matter of going out there and playing it.

“You get to a point where you’re like, ‘I’ve hit a five iron here every day I’ve been here for five years. I’m pretty sure I’ll take that out of my bag again.’”

Now, Schoepp is playing the waiting game.

Despite winning the NSIC individual title, he doesn’t automatically qualify to play in the NCAA Midwest/Central Super Regional on May 8-10 at St. Joseph Country Club in St. Joseph, Missouri. He will find out during the April 25 selection show if he is a selected individual.

“We’ll see what happens,” Schoepp said. “I have some schoolwork to do, but we’ll keep practicing and keep grinding to see what happens. Summer tournaments are coming, too. We’ll see what happens, it’s going to be close.”

If he doesn’t make the regional event, Schoepp’s focus shifts to his summer slate of tournaments before kicking off his senior year in the fall.

“You get done, and you say thanks to the seniors, but we’re right there, and you just can’t wait for the fall,” Schoepp said. “The summer tournaments are there to work on your game and get better. There’s a couple I want to play better at – Pine to Palm, The Birchmont – see if I can get a little higher on the leaderboard and stuff. Just have to keep grinding, but it should be fun.”