After two rounds Monday, the
Northwestern men’s golf team was in a log jam at the top of the leader-board at The Prestige at PGA West, and only one team could come out on top after the final round Tuesday. But victory once again passed the Wildcats by, and they settled for a fifth-place finish at the La Quinta Resort Mountain Course in La Quinta, Calif.
“I would say we had an OK tournament, but not great by any means,” NU coach Pat Goss said. “We had multiple opportunities throughout both days to play great, but we just didn’t come through.”
Coming into the final round, the No. 26 Cats sat tied for third with No. 4 UCLA and No. 33 Pepperdine and were 5 shots behind leader No. 7 Texas Christian. Rounding out the five-team backlog was No. 23 Brigham Young, in second at 2 strokes off the lead.
By the end of the day, UCLA had overtaken the field and surpassed Texas Christian to take home the championship.
The Cats, who matched their competition in the first two rounds, could not contend with UCLA, finishing 9 shots back of the Bruins after being tied with them on Day One. NU also lost ground with the top of the field, allowing Colorado to make up a 1-stroke deficit to tie in the final round.
“This defeat is disappointing because we played with UCLA in the final round, and all our shots we lost on them were in the last four holes,” Goss said.
The bright spot for NU was senior Tom Johnson’s play. Johnson, who was recently invited to compete in the Western Refining College All-America Golf Classic, put himself incontention for the individual championship in all three rounds. After shooting a 2-under-par 142 (67-75) Monday, the senior followed it up with a 68 in the final round to finish 6-under for the tournament, good enough for third place.
“Tom played a good first round,” Goss said. “He couldn’t get much going in the second round, but he had a great third round. He actually had the opportunity to play even better than he did (on Day Two), but he had a few double bogeys, which prevented him from shooting a round of 63 or 64.”
Also contributing to NU’s team score were junior Dillon Dougherty (73-71-71–215), who broke out of a small midseason slump to place 11th in front of his grandparents, who live near the course; sophomore Bryson Young (71-77-75–223), who placed 40th; and seniors Casey Strunk (76-72-76–224), who placed 42nd, and T.C. Ford (75-74-82–231), who rounded out the team in 60th.
“It was nice for Dillon to play well and to have a good showing in front of a home crowd,” Goss said. “It was disappointing counting high rounds by Casey and T.C., and it is hard to be consistent with that. There was just not enough depth in our third and fourth scores.”
The Prestige wraps up the fall season for the NU golf team, but while the Cats did not come away with any victories, Goss is optimistic about the spring season.
“We had a relatively good fall season,” Goss said. “We did all this without Tom playing his best, and scorewise he will be our leader come spring. We also had some guys step up and improve like Dillon and Bryson, so things look good for the spring season.”
