NORMAN, Okla. – Three Fighting Illini men's golfers were honored by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) on Saturday (May 24) when Jackson Buchanan, Max Herendeen, and Ryan Voois were selected to the 2025 Division I PING All-Midwest Region team. The announcement was made just after the team teed off in Round 2 of the NCAA Championship at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.
The honor is the third all-region selection of Buchanan's career, while Herendeen and Voois each earn their second nods.
This marks the 17th consecutive season that the Illini have had multiple honorees on the all-region list.
Buchanan, the 2025 Byron Nelson Award winner, Illinois' Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient, and a unanimous All-Big Ten selection, becomes the 11th golfer under head coach Mike Small's guidance to earn three All-Midwest Region honors from the GCAA. Entering the NCAA Championship, the Dacula, Ga., native ranks first on the team and third in the Big Ten at No. 33 in the NCAA Division I men's golf player rankings and has reached as high as 11th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) during his senior season. This year, he has posted a career-best stroke average of 70.72 and secured his fourth-career collegiate victory at the Fallen Oak Collegiate Invitational. He has posted a team-best eight top-10 finishes, including a third-place showing in the team's win last fall at the Steelwood Collegiate Invitational, and leads the Orange and Blue with 25 of 39 rounds at par or better. Â
Herendeen, the first Fighting Illini since Michael Feagles in 2017 and 2018 to earn first-team All-B1G accolades during his freshman and sophomore campaigns, has now earned back-to-back All-Region laurels. The Bellevue, Wash., native ranks No. 43 in the NCAA player rankings, second on the team, fifth in the Big Ten overall, and first among the league's underclassmen. He has also reached as high as No. 24 on the WAGR charts this season. Entering the NCAA Championship, Herendeen's season stroke average of 70.67 leads the Illini, and he has recorded the team's best head-to-head record at 893-151-24 (.847). Herendeen is tied with Buchanan for the team lead with 13 rounds in the 60s and boasts the teams two of the team's three lowest individual rounds of the year, carding 63 (-7) in the final round to place fifth at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate, and matching that score to tie the opening-round record at the B1G Championship. His best finish of the season came at the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational where he tied for the lead with a 204 (-12) before finishing second in a playoff for medalist honors.
Voois continued his steady climb for Illinois after his breakout sophomore campaign last season. He joined Buchanan, and Herendeen, as the only Fighting Illini to compete in the scoring lineup in all 39 rounds entering NCAA Championship. The native of Ladera Ranch, Calif., ranks third on the team with a season stroke average of 71.44, a career-best average. Voois closed four tournaments as the Illini's top finisher, second to Buchanan's six, with a T6 at the OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational, a T21 against an elite field at the Southern Highlands Collegiate, a T3 finish to pace the squad in Illinois' second team victory of the season at the Memphis Intercollegiate, and a T2 performance to lead the Illini to a share of the NCAA Urbana Regional title. Overall, he has recorded top-25 finishes in 11 tournaments this year, tied with Herendeen for the most on the team, and ranks second behind Buchanan with 24 of 39 rounds at par or better, including 13 rounds in the 60s.
