The men’s golf team earned their second fourth-place finish of the 2025 spring season at the Bentwater Intercollegiate tournament on Feb. 10-11.
Along with the team’s impressive finish, Preston Cooper, sophomore from Dallas, earned an individual sixth-place finish, ending with a score of -1 through three rounds. This earned him WAC men’s golfer of the week, the first of his career and the team’s second such award this season after Gregoire Hoyeau, junior from Paris, France, won it following his performance at the Vaqueros Intercollegiate tournament.
Cooper’s -1 finish was the result of a -6 second round after shooting a +1 in his first round and finishing the tournament with +4 on day three.
Cooper attributed his slow start to his unfamiliarity with the course but was able to start “firing on all cylinders” once he saw a few putts roll in.
Head Coach Tom Shaw saw Cooper’s success and recognized his ability to rise to the occasion.
“I call him a gamer,” Shaw said. “The bigger the moment, the tougher the conditions, and Preston rises up to that.”
Between his first and second rounds, Cooper had a streak of three consecutive birdies from hole 18 in round one to hole two in round two. This streak helped propel him to end the tournament with nine birdies, trailing just one of his teammates, Hoyeau, who had 10. Cooper also tallied an eagle on hole number nine of his second round, a 453-yard par 4.
This streak of birdies served as a turning point and a confidence booster for Cooper, leading him to his low-scoring second round.
“I got up and down on hole three,” Cooper said. “Then I got up and down on hole four with an 18-foot putt for par. That gave me a lot of momentum to be aggressive to be aggressive with pins and know my putting is there.”
Shaw was not only impressed with Cooper’s putting, as he pointed out his approach shots to the green were “the best on the team by far.”
“When he gets the putter rolling he’s hard to beat,” Shaw said. “His approach shots to the green were really good; he’s always a pretty straight driver, but his iron play was also really good this week.”
While Cooper’s success helped lead the team to its fourth-place finish, the team’s preparation and ability to bounce back allowed them to score well and climb the leaderboard.
“We were in last at one point in the tournament,” Cooper said. “We know how to bounce back and we know how to make birdies.”
The team finished with a score of +12 and was awarded 22.93 points by the NCAA. This is the second consecutive fourth-place finish, which leaves room for improvement at the Houston Christian University Colin Montgomerie Tournament on March 3-4.
“I think we’re going down to Houston Christian’s tournament as one of the better teams,” Shaw said. “It will be interesting to see how we handle that expectation. We want to be the team that’s eventually the favorite in every tournament we go to.”
