(photo via ACU Sports)
The fall season of the ACU men’s golf team came to a close on Oct. 27 when the final day of their trip to the rural town of College Grove, Tennessee was met with rain, causing The Grove Intercollegiate tournament to come to an end early, leaving the Wildcats in 10th place.
Now the team wait as they prepare for their next tournament, The Atchafalaya Intercollegiate, which will be played in Patterson, Louisiana on February 22.
After a tough fall season, which saw the Wildcats fail to capture a single digit finish (T-11th, T-12th, 12th, 10th, receptively) over the course of their four tournament season, the team knows not to get themselves down about their performance, and can look to improve on their own individual games.
“This fall season was kind of a tune-up, to kind of see where you’re at and see what you need to work on,” senior Dillon Vaughn said. “So for us, we just have to preach consistency as we go forward.”
Head coach Tom Shaw said that he is impressed with the team. Although they didn’t finish in tournaments the way that they would have liked to, he is looking forward to see how much they will be able to improve even more this offseason.
“We’re a deeper team than we were last year, but we aren’t deep enough yet,” Shaw said. “We have basically a hundred days before out next tournament, so this is a chance for the guys who have not played much in the fall, to find ways of getting into the lineup in the spring and it’s a chance for guys who did play a lot to continue to get better and become some of the better players in the conference. You can’t win the conference championship in the fall, but I believe it can put your team on track to make that a possibility. This is our chance for us to build on that momentum.”
After fours tournament in five weeks, three of which were in different states, Vaughn said he is looking forward to the rest that this break will give him and the team. It also will provide time to improve on certain aspects of their game.
“For me, I don’t think that I’m just so ready to get back [into tournaments], because I know I have a lot to improve on,” Vaughn said. “I think having a little bit of time off will be good because it gives you time to step back and look at your game and really focus on what needs to change and what you have to get better in. That will be nice, but when it comes around, I’ll be really excited and I can’t wait to get back to that.”
