The K-State men’s golf team traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana this weekend for the David Toms Intercollegiate at University Club.
Coming off of a solid finish at their last tournament where the team took fourth at the Golfweek Conference Challenge, the Wildcats were looking to match or improve on their result from the tournament in Iowa.
That is exactly what they did.
The team played 36 holes on Saturday and scored a of 291 for the first 18 holes, then followed that up with a 297 on the second 18 holes. The final 18 holes on Sunday totaled at 292 for the Wildcats.
The tournament total of 880, 16 over-par, was good enough to earn second place at the tournament, losing only to the defending NCAA Champion LSU Tigers.
Although K-State took second place of 11 competing teams, Wildcat head coach Grant Robbins is still looking for improvement from his team, and said he believes that getting experience is what will make that improvement happen.
“Overall it was a good finish for us,” Robbins said to K-State Sports. “We got off to a great start and got within five shots of the lead at one point, but we made too many mental errors down the stretch that cost us. We have to do a much better job of finishing off rounds, but experience is sometimes the best teacher. Hopefully we can learn from this and continue to get better.”
Leading the Wildcats individually was freshman Jeremy Gandon. Coming off a tournament win in the last outing, Gandon made a run at another individual title. He came up just short, however, shooting scores of 71, 73, and 69 to finish in a tie for second place with Nathan Jeansonne from LSU.
Not far off of Gandon’s finish was junior Matt Green. Green fired rounds of 75, 70, and 72 to finish at 1-over par and tied for fifth with LSU’s Haraldur Magnus.
Wildcat sophomore Oscar Spolander carded scores of 72, 74, and 78 to shoot eight-over par and finish in a three-way tie for 16th place individually.
Finishing at 15-over par and tying for 39th place was both senior Kyle Weldon and junior Connor Knabe. Weldon had rounds of 77, 80 and 74 whereas Knabe fired scores of 73, 81 and 77.
“I really like the progress we are making and do not think we have scratched the surface of how good we can be,” Robbins said. “We have to continue to work hard and keep striving to improve.”
The men’s golf team will be back in action on Oct. 25-26 in Greensboro, North Carolina at Grandover Resort East Course for the Bridgestone Golf Collegiate.
