Christopher Livingston
Staff Writer
The men’s golf team finished third, behind Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Redlands at the 2019 West Cup golf tournament held at the Sierra La Verne Country Club on Monday and Tuesday.
The Leopards came into the West Cup ranked No. 14 nationally, behind Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rivals No. 7 Redlands and No. 13 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, making this a very competitive tournament.
Junior Jason Brown finished the first round of the tournament with a round best score of two strokes under 71.
“I hit the ball really well,” Brown said. “I was in the fairways, I was hitting the right spots in the greens. For my first nine, I made nine straight pars. I was kind of knocking at the door the entire front nine.”
Brown would finish the tournament tied for 10th with an overall score of 222.
Although the team played very well on day one of the tournament, day two proved to be a bit of a different story.
Junior Charlie Green, who finished the tournament tied for 53rd with an overall score of 239, feels that the team lost momentum during key points during the round.
“A lot of short putts were missed throughout the team, and just mental errors during big moments on the course.” Green said.
Green credits holes 14 and 15 on the course as being two of the problem areas for the team during day two of the tournament saying that, the difficult shots and “quick greens” led to the slight collapse.
Despite the rough play from this tournament, there is still plenty of confidence within this team.
Senior Hisham Hussein, who finished the tournament tied for third with a team best overall score of 220, believes that the sky is the limit for this Leopards squad.
“I don’t think anyone had their ‘A’ game this week, but we’re still close to the top of the leaderboard.” Hussein said. “Looking forward, I think we’re in a really good spot.”
Senior Conner Davis, who finished the tournament tied for 19th with an overall score of 227, feels that this tournament is a valuable learning experience for this team and that the team can build from what they’ve learned.
“Whether it’s a win or a loss, we’ll be able to learn from what we didn’t do well and take it forward into the next practices and next tournaments with us,” Davis said. “I definitely see us being able to get to a national championship.”
The Leopards’ move into conference play next with the SCIAC No. 2 tournament which will be April 6-7 at the Industry Hills Golf Course in the City of Industry.
Christopher Livingston can be reached at christopher.livingston@laverne.edu.
