The past two days, the 24th ranked DWU Tigers Men's Golf Team competed in Storm Lake, Iowa at the Lake Creek Country Club for the Buena Vista Spring Invitational. In a jam packed field including a few top D-3 NCAA schools and some solid JuCo's, the Tigers battled their way back to finish in 6th place out of 19 teams.
The first round of the tournament, Tigers' senior Big Canada got out to a pretty solid start making birdies on 4 of his first 7 holes coupled with two bogeys and one par. After settling in, he carded a 69 (3 under par) to be tied for the lead with Chris Reck from Wartburg College. Other teammates included Tyler Evenson (78), Nick Gates (79), Andrew Farrand (79), Chris Pritchard (80) and Adam Shiffermiller (78). The Tigers shot 305 to be in a tie for 6th with Iowa Lakes Community College, 15 shots back from first place.
The second round of the tournament, the Welshman, Chris Pritchard, got off to a solid and steady start and carded a 69 follow by teammates Tyler Evenson (74), Brett Abbotts (76), Nick Gates (78), Andrew Farrand (80) and Adam Shiffermiller (83). The Tigers carded their first round under 300 for the season for a 297 to finish the tournament shooting 602. This is nearly a 30 stroke improvement from our last tournament, so one could hazard a guess that getting outside and being able to practice with REAL golf balls has vastly improved our teams' scoring abilities.
What we have to look forward to...This next week we are going to be practicing and preparing for our last GPAC Qualifier where we will compete at Whispering Creek Golf Course in Sioux City, Iowa. To update, we have a 5 stroke lead over Nebraska Wesleyan (who plays D3 NCAA post season) and we are 27 shots ahead of Hastings College. After the performance we had this weekend, our attitudes and demeanor towards our golf games has only increased. We have a strong feeling of confidence knowing that we are only getting better as our rounds continue and that we are starting to play to our potential.
For individual results, the Tigers still have 4 players inside the top-10 and those who are in the hunt for GPAC Player of the Year as well as making the All-Conference team.
T-1 Brett Abbotts (+8)
5th Nick Gates (+10)
T-10 Tyler Evenson (+16)
T-10 Andrew Farrand (+16)
Wish us all luck :-)
Also, this weekend, the Tigers will be hosting the 4th annual Holly Rotert Memorial golf tournament. This is a very large fundraiser for our team and something that we always look forward to hosting. It is very exciting for us to be able to bring in a lot of different people who are supportive of who we are and our mission on and off the golf course.
Any questions or comments, please feel free to contact either head coach Adam Anderson (adanders@dwu.edu) or team captain Brett Abbotts (brabbott@dwu.edu) and either of us will get back to you as soon as we can.
Thank you for your continued support of the DWU Tigers Men's Golf Team.
Written by: Brett Abbotts
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