The Pepperdine men’s golf team continued its struggles this week in its final tournament of the fall season with another disappointing finish at the Turtle Bay Resort Collegiate Invitational in Hawaii. The Waves repeated last year’s finish of 8th place totaling 866 strokes over three rounds to tie with Oregon State and host University of Hawaii. The men limped out of the gates with a 6-over par 294 and couldn’t recover to get into contention finishing 23 strokes behind tournament winner University of Texas.
“We were way behind the eight ball after the first round and it’s tough to play catch up two days in a row said Head Coach John Geiberger.
The Waves followed the poor first round with an even par 288 that moved them up four spots on the leader board to 11th and improved even more in the final round, shooting a 4-under par 284.
Redshirt freshman Josh Anderson continued his solid first season traveling with the Waves finishing in a tie for 10th place and posting his best collegiate score to date with rounds of 73-70-68. Sophomore Andrew Putnam fired a final round 63 at this tournament one year ago, but he couldn’t muster a deep round this year, tallying rounds of 71-73-69 to finish tied for 18th.
Anderson said the scores were a little high because of the wind, and if he would have gotten off to a better start in the first round, he could have finished a lot better.
I could have had a low round in the final round but I missed a lot of putts that were makeable Anderson said. I finished alright but I just played bad in the first round.”
Junior Shane Mason put together rounds of 73-72-76 for a 5-over par total and a tie for 56th place finish. After playing well in his first two tournaments of the season sophomore Austyn Karle struggled this week finishing tied for 66th place with a 7-over par total of 223. Finally redshirt junior Carl Smith regrouped after a first round 81 to shoot 76 in the second round and 74 in the final but finished in 96th.
Despite the team’s sluggish fall season Geiberger said he’s optimistic the team can come back to play well and succeed in the spring season.
“We’ve had one or two good tournaments and a few good rounds he said. Usually when you have a bad fall season you’ll have a good spring so I think we’ll play good this spring. We’ll see how they respond.”