The beautiful Fort Collins Country Club was the location for this week’s golf tournament for the UVU men’s golf team. 17 teams competed and the Wolverines found themselves in the middle of the pack at ninth place after 54 holes of golf.
After placing dead last (18) in their previous tournament, the Wolverines looked to make progress, and were able to do just that. Junior Jake Bryson led the way with a top-10 finish shooting an overall score of 209. This landed Bryson in a five-way tie for eighth place.
“It was another great week for Jake (Bryson),” said Utah Valley head coach Chris Curran. “As a team, we are still making some silly mistakes but we are trending in the right direction.”
The first round started out rocky through the first 18 holes for the Wolverines. Not a single golfer carded under par. The best score came from senior Gabe Lysen, who carded a 2-over-par 72, with the rest of the team hot on his tail. UVU finished the first round tied with Houston Baptist University at No. 11.
Round two was a step in the right direction for four out of the five UVU golfers, all of whom cut strokes from their previous round. Bryson took more than just a step in the right direction, as he cut eight strokes off of his game for a score of 5-under-par 65 for the round. This was the only score under par for any Wolverine in the tournament. The improvement of the other three individual scores helped the Wolverines climb the ranks to ninth place.
Round three seemed to play much like round one. Bryson was on track to play another round under par, but two bogies on holes 17 and 18 put him at 1-over-par for the day. Bryson would finish at 1-under-par for the tournament.
Colorado State University were the winners of this tournament shooting an impressive 831 as a team. To put that into perspective, UVU shot 864. The Rams had three golfers place in the top-5 and had a total of five rounds under par among their five golfers.
The solo leader of the tournament came from the University of Texas at El Paso. Junior Oskar Ambrosius shot three outstanding rounds under par— 5-under-par 65 and two rounds of 2-under-par 68. His overall score for the tournament was 201.
The Wolverines will have plenty of time to practice their chipping, putting and driving before their next tournament on Oct. 7-8. The team will head back to Colorado one more time to participate in the Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational in Erie.
Photo courtesy of UVU Athletics
