Ryan Wallen competes in a tournament from a previous season. Men’s golf will be wrapping up their season at the Mountain West Championships at the beginning of May.
The Wyoming men’s golf team started off their spring season at the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in Palm Desert, California, starting February 20th and ending the 23rd.
During this tournament play the men’s golf team had a first round of 303, a second round of 311 and a final round of 310. These three rounds gave the Pokes a total of 924. This final score gave Wyoming the 22nd position out of 24 teams in tournament play. Although this initial competition proved to have some superior competitors, head coach Joe Jensen came back to Laramie with optimism for his young team.
“This was a great event and great experience for my young guys,” Jensen said. “I’m pleased with my group. We went out and played hard and there were some mistakes out there, but it was a real good group effort.”
Coach Jenson must have been partly referring to freshman Glenn Workman who finished in the middle of the pack with a tie for the 66th spot. Hitting an 11 over par after the conclusion of the three rounds.
Following the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate the team was sent to the Arizona National Invitational Tournament in Tucson, Arizona. The team concluded the tournament in last place overall but were consistent. The Pokes finished with a final score of 924, the same concluding score as their previous competition. On the other hand, sophomore Ryan Wallen had a solid tournament performance finishing tied for 42nd place, hitting +8. Although the team was not ending tournaments on top, these young players were getting extremely valuable experience among some of the nation’s top golf teams.
On April 4th the men’s golf team went back to Arizona to compete at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational. Here the team showed improvement from their past competitions with a sum of 886 on the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona. With a score of 886 the pokes were able to shave 38 strokes off their previous scores of 924. Wyoming’s top golfer was Drew McCullough who finished 19th overall. This finish gave McCullough his third top 25 finish.
Next the Cowboys traveled to Chandler Arizona to compete in the Cowboy Classic. Even with the pokes recording their lowest three round score in the beginning of April, the team was able to keep their progression afloat with another season low score of 870. With this season low score the team managed to place 14th out of the 18-team playing field.
Yet again freshman Drew McCullough led the pokes with an impressive 33rd place finish out of 100 competitors. Hopefully the golf team can continue their improvement at the BYU Cougar Classic at the end of this week.
