After shooting one of the better final rounds scores, the CU men’s golf team was able to tie for third place in the 45th annual Gene Miranda Air Force Falcon Invitational, which was completed here Monday.

 

Host Air Force opened the meet with the lowest scoring round in the 15-team field and never looked back, cruising to a 15-under 849 team score.  Texas-El Paso grabbed runner-up honors as the only other team under par (861, minus-3), with Colorado and Wyoming sharing third with 3-over 867 scores.  Nevada rounded out the top five with an 869 total.

 

The Buffaloes had entered the tournament as its two-time defending champion, including running away with the 2012 event by 12 strokes.  Colorado had it at one time 7-under par on Monday, but lost a few strokes over the last six holes and settled for the third-place tie.

 

“We played good, not great, and many of the teams in the tournament are a lot better than they’ve been,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said.  “This might be the best Air Force team I’ve ever seen, and congratulations to them.  I thought the course played a little more difficult than it did last year when we won at 12-under, and they bettered that by three shots.  Kyle Westmoreland (AFA’s number one) could play for any team in the country.”

 

Westmoreland led from wire-to-wire in posting three rounds in the 60s en route to a 12-under 204, which was good for a five-stroke victory on the 7,408-yard, par-72 Eisenhower Blue Golf Course.

 

Freshman Ethan Freeman led all seven Buffaloes who played here, though he competed as an individual meaning his score did not count toward the CU team total (he was not one of the top five qualifiers).  However, thanks to a 3-under par 69 in the final round which saw him score seven birdies, the Kent Denver graduate’s 1-under 215 total tied for the third-lowest score by a CU player in his first major tournament in school history.  That effort trailed onlyJonathan Kaye, who recorded a 213 (+3) in the 1990 Wyoming Invitational, and Sebastian Heisele’s 2-under 214 in the 2008 Denver-Ron Moore Invitational.

CU golf Ethan

 

“This was a really good start for Ethan.  He’s a very consistent player and we’re happy he had this kind of good start for his career.  The other two freshmen also did nice jobs, no real freshman jitters that I saw.”

 

(That conjured up a story from the 1980s when Charlie Luther’s first career tee shot hit a tree and wound up a few yards behind the tee box.  Then-CU head coach, the late Mark Simpson, comforted Charlie by telling him, “That’s okay, Charlie.  Even Tony Dorsett lost yardage on his first collegiate carry.”)

 

Freeman tied for 10th place in the 88-man field, finishing his first collegiate event with 12 birdies (sixth-most in the field) and 31 pars against 11 bogeys on a challenging course that has the capability of eating young golfers up; he also tied for fifth in par-4 scoring, playing those 30 holes at 2-under.  The last freshman to lead the Buffaloes in a season opening tournament was Derek Tolan, who tied for eighth in the 2005 New Mexico Tucker Invitational (2-under 214); Tolan was a redshirt frosh: the last true freshman to pace CU was Rick Cramer, who had a 1-over 217 for third place overall finish in the 1979 AFA Falcon invite.

 

Sophomore Drew Trujillo and freshman Yannik Paul both tied for 16th, as each finished up with 1-under 71s for a 1-over 217.  Trujillo had a steady round that included an eagle (on the par-5 No. 9), a birdie and 14 pars, while Paul scored six birdies in his final round, giving him 14 for the tourney, second-most in the field.

 

Senior Johnny Hayes and freshman Jeremy Paul tied for 25th with 3-over par 219 totals.  Hayes also played here as an individual and closed with a 4-over 76; his 38 pars led the Buffs here and tied for the seventh-most in the meet.  Paul, one minute older than his twin sibling, finished with a 1-over 73; he had CU’s other eagle in the meet, which came in the first round.

 

Junior David Oraee got back on track Monday after two over-par rounds, as he fashioned a 2-under 70 to wrap things up with a 221 score (tying him for 37th).   He had 11 bogeys the first two rounds but shaved that down to two in the final round, though they did come on his last two holes of the day, otherwise he would have had a round in the 60s.

 

Sophomore Philip Juel-Berg closed with a 1-over 73, giving him a 223 total which tied him for 45th.  Though he tied for 19th in the field with 10 birdies over the three rounds, and his 10-shot improvement from his first to second round (80-70) was the best in the field from one round to the next.

“We’re not overly happy with the result, and despite being just 3-over par as a team, there’s much room for improvement,” Edwards said.  “But it’s still a solid start.  The positives today were that nobody in the starting five made worse than bogey on a hole, and we did a lot better job of managing our games.”

 

The Buffaloes will resume play in two weeks in the fourth annual Mark Simpson-CU Invitational, set for September 23-24 at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie.

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