Golf starts two day tournament
Storms have once again covered our valley.
For many, that puts a damper on their golf game, but luckily for the USU men’s golf team, they will be playing their second tournament in a row in California, and it will be the team’s third match in the last four to be played in the land of sunshine.
The USU men’s golf team started a two-day tournament Thursday in Arroyo Grande, Calif. It is the Cuesta Vista Intercollegiate, hosted by Cal Poly, and it will consist of 17 teams.
Five players started playing for the Aggies on Thursday – Preston Otte, Jake Blair, Jeremy Pack, Devin Daniels and Alex Putnam. Otte leads the team with a 74.58 scoring average, followed by Daniels at 75.76, who also led the team in their last tournament.
Blair averages 76.41 per round, Pack 81.12, and Putnam 83.50.
After finishing 14th in their last match, the Aggies came out a little reserved Thursday and not as confident as Head Coach Dean Johanson would have wanted, he said.
“We looked a little tentative on the greens,” Johanson said. “We hit it OK, but we were not making a lot of putts.”
For the morning round, the Aggies shot 297 with a low of 75.
Johanson said the team’s morning game was “not real good, but not horrible.”
The Aggies played a total of 36 holes on Thursday, and will finish up their last 18 today.
Last year the Aggies finished 14th in this tournament. In order to improve from that performance, they will look to be more confident with their putters, as well as improve the rest of their games, Johansen said.
The good news, however, is that last year the Aggies finished this tournament with their best round. Hopefully this year’s Aggies will be able to follow suit and finish strong enough to propel them into the upper half of the teams.
Among the teams they are competing against are Cal Poly, which has two teams, British Columbia, Cal State Bakersfield, Cal State Northridge, Cal State San Marcos, Claremont-McKenna, DePaul, Gonzaga, Idaho, Idaho State, Loyola Marymount, Portland, Sacramento State, San Francisco, UC Riverside and Utah Valley State.
-wwm@cc.usu.edu