LA QUINTA, CALIF. - The Seawolves men's golf team teed it up down south in La Quinta at the Battle in the Desert golf tournament. This tournament was played at the beautiful PGA West Mountain Course and was hosted by fellow CCAA member Cal State San Bernardino. There were 16 teams in the tournament with 12 of them being ranked top in the top 50 of division two as well as 23 players ranking inside of the top 100. Rather than the usual format of playing two rounds one day and then one round the next, the tournament was played over the course of three days featuring one round a day.
FIRST ROUND 288 (E):
Monday morning the men teed off and the team remained even par through nine, thanks to a fiery three-under-par start by
Jules Lavigne. The back nine holes were flip-flopped as Lavigne shot two over and received help from
Griffin Pace who shot two under and
Aidan Oliver who shot one under. At the end of the first round, Lavigne and Pace shot one under and
Colin Huang and
Aidan Oliver shot one over. With
Nick Friedman's round resulting in a drop score, the team finished the first day at even par which put them in a four-way tie at third.
SECOND ROUND 298 (+10):
The second round brought difficult weather late in the day which heavily affected the team. One player who seemed unfazed by the conditions was
Nick Friedman. He shot one under on the front and two over on the back to finish as the low round for the day at one over par. Lavigne struggled a bit more than the others and shot five over whereas Pace, Oliver, and Huang all shot three over. They finished their round at 10-over-par and sat in a tie for 11th place.
THIRD ROUND 292 (+4):
The third and final day got off to a very rough start with Lavigne being the only player to manage shooting even par through nine holes. Pace shot five over, Oliver shot three over, and Huang and Friedman both shot two over. With the team dropping in ranking they needed to turn it around, and that's exactly what they did. Oliver and Friedman both shot even par meanwhile Pace and Lavigne both shot one under. Huang led the back nine charge shooting two under. With rounds of one under by Lavigne, even by Huang, two over by Friedman, and three over by Oliver, the team managed to total a score of four over par. This was the second-best round of the day by any team and the Seawolves jumped four spots to take a creditable fifth-place finish in the stacked field.
Sonoma State will look to carry their momentum from a terrific third round into their next event on Monday, March 13th at the Tim Tierney Pioneer Shootout, hosted by Cal State East Bay. Live scoring link and round by round updates can be found at sonomaseawolves.com.
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