St. John's University Athletics
St. John’s to Host the Doc Gimmler
9/8/2023 9:16:00 AM | Men's Golf
Red Storm will open its season on Saturday
QUEENS, N.Y. – The St. John's men's golf team will begin its 2023-24 campaign close to home when its hosts The Doc Gimmler this weekend.
The three-round, 54-hole event will begin on Saturday from Bethpage State Park Red Course, a 7,029 yard, par 70 track on Long Island.
Tee times will commence both days at 7:30 a.m. and live scoring will be available on GolfGenius.
The Red Storm will welcome 14 other schools to Bethpage for its annual home event: Columbia, Fairfield, FDU, Georgetown, Harvard, Hofstra, Iona, Lafayette, Lehigh, Loyola Maryland, Niagara, LIU, Rider and Towson.
Heading into its second-year under the direction of Head Coach Phil Wildermuth, St. John's is coming off an impressive season where it finished runner-up at the BIG EAST Championships, the team's best finish since it captured a league title in 2014.
The Johnnies will return All-BIG EAST First Team Selection and PING All-Northeast Region Team choice Peicheng Chen for his junior season. As a sophomore, Chen took home two individual titles and logged a team-low 71.9 stroke average.
Ryan Rittberger is also back in Queens for a fifth season. The graduate student strung together a solid campaign in 2022-23 recording three top-six finishes.
Wildermuth welcomes five newcomers including 2022 New York State High School Champion Thomas Finn and Monmouth's Team MVP Erik Stevens.
Last year at the event, St. John's finished runner-up to Harvard and Chen led the team placing third overall. The program its seeking its second-ever Doc Gimmler title with the first coming in the spring of 2021.
In 2013, St. John's renamed the event from The McLaughlin to The Doc Gimmler to honor former Red Storm student-athlete and golf coach Jack "Doc" Gimmler. Gimmler came to St. John's in 1945 and helped lead the baseball team to the school's first College World Series in 1949.
After graduating, Gimmler went on to become the head athletic trainer for St. John's before taking over as the Head Coach of the men's golf team and Associate Director of Athletics.
Gimmler guided the men's golf program to its first-ever BIG EAST title in 1979 and led the Johnnies to nine conference championships in the first 11 years of the league's existence. Under Gimmler's direction, St. John's finished either first or second in the BIG EAST in all but one season between 1979 and 1990. The longtime coach led St. John's to 10 Metropolitan Championships and five NCAA Tournament appearances during his tenure.
Gimmler passed away in 1996, but will forever be remembered for his impact on collegiate golf, collegiate athletics, and St. John's over his more than four decades of service.
