Marquette men’s golf closed out the regular season with an eighth-place finish at the Hawkeye Invitational. Iowa State finished five strokes ahead of Idaho to win the tournament. Senior Brandon Cloete paced the Golden Eagles with a three-round score of 3-over par. As a team, Marquette finished at 16-over par and ended the tournament with four of the top 38 golfers in the 65-player field.
Junior Pat Sanchez was disappointed in the team’s performance.
“I was definitely not satisfied because we know we have the ability of beating more teams,” Sanchez said. “However, every one of our players showed good play in at least one of the rounds, so we have to work on consistency.”
Friday morning’s first round put the Golden Eagles in eighth place. Sanchez opened the tournament with a 2-under par. He was one of only 17 golfers to have a round below par in the opening round. The rest of the team shot between 2-over par and 5-over par.
Saturday’s second round was the team’s best of the weekend, shooting even par on the afternoon. Sanchez, junior Nick Nelson and freshman Trevor Thomas all shot at or below par, led by Thomas’ 2-under par. The team’s round was the fifth-best of the day, bumping Marquette up in the standings to seventh place.
Sunday’s final round was the team’s poorest of the tournament, scoring 9-over par. While Cloete had his best round of the weekend at 2-under par, the rest of the team could not capitalize. Scores of 6-over par from Sanchez and Thomas left the Golden Eagles in eighth place to end the weekend.
Last season, the team finished in fifth place at the Hawkeye Invitational. However, the return trip led to lower scores for Marquette. Despite finishing in eighth place, the Golden Eagles shot 12 strokes better than their previous trip to Iowa City.
Even though the team was unable to win a tournament, redshirt junior CJ Swift believes the improvement over the course of the season was most important.
“I would grade our team’s performance over the regular season as continued improvement,” Swift said. “We have had strong finishes this year (three top 3’s in tournaments) which we will build off of. But the golf program has come a long way since my freshman year that can be attributed to coach (Steve) Bailey and assistant coach Mike (Bielawski).”
Up next for Marquette is the Big East Tournament in Callawasie Island Golf Course in Callawasie, South Carolina. The Golden Eagles finished in second place behind St. Johns in last year’s tournament.
Cloete saw the team’s finish in the Hawkeye Invitational as the edge needed for the Big East Tournament.
“I think we really battled and fought hard for all our placings this season, but what we have lacked is that day where everyone comes together and plays well,” Cloete explained. “We know when that happens, it’s going to be something special, and there’s no better place than (the) Big East (Tournament) to do it.”
