The Utah Valley men’s golf team hit the links for their third tournament of the season, participating in the Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational on Oct. 7-8.
The first two tournaments for the Wolverines resulted in 18th and seventh place finishes, respectively. This tournament was a chance for UVU to prove that seventh place wouldn’t be their best finish of the season.
Round one was highlighted by a rare hole-in-one by junior Jake Bryson on a 99-yard, par-3 at hole nine. Bryson started the round with a birdie on hole four, followed by a par, two bogies and a birdie. His card read an even par before the hole-in-one. From there, Bryson would get as low as 4-under-par, ending the round at 3-under-par 69.
The team finished round one in 11th place thanks to Bryson’s 69. Senior Gabe Lyson and freshman Kai Iguchi each contributed par-72. Two other freshman, Brian Sterri and Dylan Naylor, carded 5-over-par 77 and 11-over-par 83, respectively.
The second half of the day consisted of another 18 holes of golf. Despite three Wolverines — Lyson, Sterri and Naylor — carding same or better rounds than the first set of 18, UVU fell back a spot on the leaderboard to last place, 12th.
“We are a young team,” said Utah Valley head coach Chris Curran to a sports information director. “We have three freshmen in the lineup this week and their lack of experience shows. We will take a step forward and then two steps back. It’s time to put together a good round tomorrow.”
Lyson kicked it up a notch to finish the tournament on Tuesday. He carded 5-under-par 67, the lowest round of the week for any Wolverine. Even more impressive than the 5-under-par, was five birdies and a bogey-free round. Lyson finished the tournament in a three-way tie for 14th place, with a score of 210.
The Wolverines finished the tournament in 11th place with an overall team score of 880. Host school, Colorado University, took solo first place with a team score of 829. This is the second tournament of the season that the Buffalos took first place — the first being the Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational, a tournament the Wolverines placed dead last.
The individual lead ended up going to three individuals. Juniors Daniel O’Loughlin from Colorado University and Michael Salazar from Grand Canyon University as well as senior Jake Dyer from Cal State Fullerton all took first place, carding 204.
The Wolverines have one more tournament before taking a break for winter. They will participate in the Bubba Barnett Intercollegiate in Jonesboro, Arkansas on Oct. 14-15.
