Irish come in with 12th place finish at Augusta Haskins Award Invitational

By ANDREW McGUINNESS

s ports e ditor

The month of m arch did not treat the n otre d ame men’s golf team particularly kindly. After starting their season with a respectable tie for sixth place in their seasonopening tournament on f eb. 16, the Irish finished in the back half of the field in their two competitions during m arch. With the postseason looming, getting off to a strong start in the month of April was imperative to get the Irish in a good place for the A cc c hampionship, which starts in less than three weeks. b ut their first of two regular season April tournaments did not go as planned. Instead, the Irish came in 12th out of 15 teams at the Augusta h askins Award Invitational. h eld at f orest h ills n otre d ame was unable to record a signature effort in any of the three rounds to vault up the leaderboard. The Irish shot a 299 on the opening round, placing them in 11th. A score of 293 in the second round kept the Irish in the same position. And though the Irish slightly improved in the third round, shooting 292, that left them in a tie for 13th for the round and dropped them one place in the final standings. s till, there were some encouraging individual performances for the Irish to take away from the weekend. f ive of n otre d ame’s six golfers recorded at least one round at par (72) or better. f reshman n ate s tevens led the way for the Irish, finishing in a tie for 23rd with a strong 1 under par score for the tournament. s tevens’ 70 in the opening round was n otre d ame’s best 18-hole score of the invitational. s enior Palmer Jackson was the only other Irish golfer to finish in the top 50, finishing in a tie for 40th. Jackson and s tevens were the only Irish players to record multiple rounds of par or better, as Jackson shot an even 72 in both of the first two rounds. Another underclassman, sophomore o wen m ullen, also flashed his skills over the weekend. m ullen’s 71 in the closing round was n otre d ame’s second-lowest single-round score of the weekend. It was also n otre d ame’s best score during the final round.

Golf c lub in Augusta, Georgia, the Irish were unable to get into a groove, ultimately recording their worst finish at a competition this season.

The Irish will still have one more chance to get things in the right direction before the postseason arrives. They are set to compete in the Thunderbird Invitational at Papago Golf c lub in Phoenix. Arizona, from April 14-15.

Contact Andrew McGuinness at amcguinn@nd.edu