CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Fighting Illini men's golfers Max Herendeen and Dane Huddleston were selected Thursday to the Golfweek Preseason All-America team. Herendeen was tabbed as a second-team honoree, while Huddleston earned a third-team nod.
Illinois is one of nine programs nationally to have multiple golfers earn Golfweek Preseason All-America honors.
Herendeen, who was also named this week to the Haskins Award Preseason Watch List, is a two-time PING All-American, earning second team honors in 2024 and honorable mention in 2025, becoming the first Illini golfer since Charlie Danielson to collect back-to-back All-America nods from the GCAA in his freshman and sophomore seasons. The Bellevue, Wash., product advanced to the final round of stroke play at the 2025 NCAA Championship and closed the year with a team-best average of 70.85 and the team's top head-to-head record at 1023-179-28 (.843). Herendeen tied for the team lead with 14 rounds in the 60s and boasted two of the team's three lowest individual rounds of the year with a 63 (-7) in the final round to place fifth at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate before 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.
Herendeen enters his junior season riding the momentum of a sensational summer that included his PGA TOUR debut at the 3M Open and was capped by Round of 16 appearances in match play at both the 123rd Western Amateur and the 125th U.S. Amateur. He has ascended to a career-best mark of No. 17 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Huddleston, who hails from Woodland, Wash., transferred to Illinois on the strength of one of the most successful individual seasons in NCAA history. During his sophomore campaign at Utah Valley in 2024-25, he competed in all 11 regular-season tournaments, winning five individual tournament titles, including the WAC Championship, and finished fifth as an individual competitor at the NCAA Reno Regional – one shot from advancing to the NCAA Championship. Huddleston's five wins made him UVU's all-time leader in career victories and marked the fourth-most in a single season in NCAA Division I history. He became one of just 24 golfers all-time to win five or more events in a single season, trailing only NCAA record holders Jay Don Blake (Utah State, 1980-81), Tiger Woods (Stanford, 1995-96), and Matt Hill (NC State (2008-09), who each posted seasons with eight tournament wins.
During his freshman campaign in 2023-24, Huddleston competed in all 11 tournaments for the Wolverines with a team-leading scoring average of 71.84 and earned First Team All-WAC honors. For his career at Utah Valley, he teed off in 66 rounds over 23 events with a combined scoring average 70.68.
The Illini are set to open the 2025-26 schedule in just more than three weeks, playing host to one of the nation's premier collegiate events at the 19th annual OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational, Sept. 19-21, at famed Olympia Fields Country Club.
