Golfers ready for spring season
It is kind of hard to play golf during the winter in Logan, but that hasn’t stopped the USU men’s golf team.
The Aggies have been driving to Ogden two to three times a week to do all they can to get the team ready for the spring season.
“The kids drive to Ogden and hit balls at Mulligan’s,” said head coach Dean Johansen. “They are actually hitting balls outside into the range. It just has heated covered stalls. It’s still pretty cold, though – you are hitting off of mats into the snow.”
On Monday and Tuesday of this week Utah State was at the Pat Hick’s Invitational in St. George. Johansen said the team scores at the event don’t matter because that is not why they were there.
“We use this tournament as kind of a chance to knock the rust off a little bit – it’s still the middle of February,” Johansen said. “Anybody that has played golf before understands that coming out of the winter in Logan, it is hard to have any kind of touch around the greens. Chipping and putting is usually the thing that you lose the quickest and is the last to come back.”
The Aggies finished 11th overall with a score of 42-over par 618 (318-300) in the 36-hole two-day tournament.
The team did hit the ball well for just coming out of the winter, Johansen said. He also said the team is ahead of where they were at this time last year.
“It’s pretty low-key for us. It’s a good chance for us to go on the road as a team and hit the balls off the grass and you get to see the other teams, you get to see how they wintered,” Johansen said, speaking of the tournament.
Utah State was led by senior Tyler Labrum who scored 77 and 73 in two rounds to tie for 16th overall with a six-over par 150. Sophomore Benjamin Schilleman finished tied for 27th at eight-over 152 as he finished with rounds of 79 and 73. Thad Truman tied for 56th with a 36-hole score of 157 with separate scores of 79 and 78 in the two rounds. Seniors Devin Daniels and Toph Peterson both ended up tied for 80th and 82nd, respectively, with totals of 163 (87-76) and 164 (83-81).
Johansen said they take the tournament in St. George seriously, but the scores don’t reflect where his team is, and not to put too much weight into this one.
The team has three seniors this year: Daniels, Labrum and Peterson.
“You always get excited about the seniors,” Johansen said. “You always get excited about the seniors because they have the most experience of anybody on the team and they are starting to learn how to play at the collage level … The younger kids get to learn form them, but the seniors get to excel a little bit.”
The Aggies are excited for the season and have a team goal to win the conference championship, he said. As far as individual goals, Johansen said a lot of the players have goals to win some events individually.
USU plays next at the Braveheart Classic in Riverside, Calif., March 2-3.
“The quicker we can get on grass, the better off we will be at Riverside. UC Riverside is one of the hardest golf courses we play all year,” Johansen said. “It’s right in the Santa Anna winds, there are gusts up to 60 mph and it’s hard to play golf in … It’s hard conditions to play in coming right out of winter.”
–p.d.k@aggiemail.usu.edu