In its third tournament of the season, the Trinity Forest Invitational, the men’s golf team finished 11th out of 15th, going two over par. This marks the second time the team has finished outside of the top 10 this season.
The starting five for ACU were Jaime Lewis, senior from Johannesburg, South Africa, Preston Cooper, sophomore from Dallas, Preston Defriend, sophomore from Lubbock, Jack Hollingsed, freshman from Dallas, and Trenton Johnson, senior from Brentwood, Tennessee.
ACU did have one individual competitor, Colin Leonard, freshman from San Angelo. He shot one over par, putting him in a three-way tie for 40th.
“We typically have not played that great at this tournament, and we probably had our best finish in recent years,” said Head Coach Tom Shaw. “Guys played better. Jaime Lewis played really well; he continues a streak of good play in the fall.”
Lewis was the highest finisher for ACU, shooting five under par, which placed him at 23rd in the standings. This is Lewis’ second time this season being the highest-finishing Wildcat.
The Wildcats didn’t perform well in the first two rounds, shooting four and two over par. In the final round, they shot two under par and climbed two spots in the standings to secure an 11th-place finish.
“All in all, especially with the final round being our best round. That’s always something we key on and left a good taste in our mouths,” Shaw said. “So, yeah, overall a pretty decent week.”
Now that the team has completed three tournaments, it can gauge where improvements need to be made for the spring to compete for a Western Athletic Conference championship.
“It started out bad, then was really good, and then this last week was right in the middle,” Shaw said. “So, I think if you average those out, we’re kind of right in the middle of where we need to be.”
The next tournament for ACU is the FAU Golf Invitational, starting on Oct. 28 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
“We’ve got some time for sure, but we had some time after our very first tournament of the year before we played well in Houston,” Shaw said. “So, I think we’re going to try and use the same formula, and just put in two weeks of really good work and focus on some things we didn’t really do as well as we should have. And hopefully, make the last tournament of the fall the best one.”
