Men’s golf traveled to La Quinta, California to compete in The Prestige golf tournament on Feb. 16-18. The Lions tied for sixth with No. 45 ranked Northwestern following a cancellation of the final round due to extreme wind.
Notably, the Lions beat out 11 top-ranked teams in the country, including No. 25 Wake Forest, No. 34 Clemson, No. 44 Little Rock and No. 46 Colorado. UNA was only two strokes away from beating No. 47 Kansas.
“Honestly, that first round was unbelievable by the guys and probably our best round of the year,” said Head Men’s Golf Coach Austin Phillips.
UNA, competing in the afternoon wave, saw pouring rain and 40 mph wind on Day One of The Prestige. The 12 teams competing earlier that morning saw perfect conditions. Regardless, UNA had the third best score out of the teams that competed in the afternoon wave.
The Lions finished day one ranked No. 13, and each player showed up the following morning ready to move up a couple slots on day two.
Individually, each player moved up at least 14 spots, with senior Sebastian Bengtsson moving up 37.
“When it got to the easier conditions, we did what we needed to do,” said Phillips. “And then other teams started to struggle because the afternoon was harder than the morning.”
Junior Andrew Ferworn finished in an eighth-place tie with his one-under tournament. With a 141 total for two rounds, he tied for fifth-best in the Division I Two Round Individual Total. Ferworn finished above top-100 ranked players, including No. 7 Texas Tech’s Connor Graham, No. 30 Southern Methodist University’s William Sides and No. 70 Wake Forest’s Tom Haberer.
The Atlantic Sun Conference named Ferworn Men’s Golfer of the Week on Feb. 19. This marks his fifth career ASUN Golfer of the Week title.
Freshman Jedd Brady finished with a score of 144, only two-over-par. Brady tied Bengtsson for 19th, who also finished with a score of 144, two-over.
Freshman Arthur Estas tied for 41st with a score of 146, four-over.
Senior Xing Luo tied for 94th with a score of 153, eleven-over.
Collectively, the Lions finished with a score of 575, seven-over-par.
“We put ourselves in the position where we can make the NCAA tournament, so to really do that we have to just get stronger in all areas of our game,” Phillips said. “We have a little bit of time off and I think the guys realize how special our season can be.”
