The Texas A&M men’s golf team and junior Daniel Rodrigues both set tournament records at the Blessings Collegiate Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
Finishing with the second lowest score in the history of the tournament, the maroon and white shot 11-under par at the over 7,900 yard, par-72 Blessings Golf Club. The team claimed victory by 20 strokes, which is the largest winning margin by seven shots in the tournament’s history. A&M coach Brain Kortan has helped the team secure two first place finishes so far this season with the win at the Oct. 3-5 tournament.
Junior Daniel Rodrigues shot at or below 70 each day of the tournament and finished with a score of 205 at 11-under par. The Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, native claimed his first career collegiate victory by two strokes after jumping to the top of the leaderboard over runner-up Sarut Vongchaisit of Ole Miss.
“Dani has been playing a lot of great golf this fall so it’s been trending this way for a while,” Kortan told 12thMan.com. “It’s nice for him to get his first win at such a challenging course; it was a joy to watch.”
Fifth-year Sam Bennett finished in the top five with Rodrigues with a 3-under par score of 213, putting him in fourth place. The remaining three players of the No. 9 men’s golf team finished in the top 20: sophomore Phichaksn Maichon tied for 13th, 3-over par, senior William Paysse tied for 15th, 4-over par, and freshman Jaime Montojo tied for 18th, 5-over par.
“The guys did a great job all week,” Kortan said. “Blessings is a challenging golf course every step of the way. We made our mistakes, but the guys hung in there; they didn’t get down. They stayed positive and kept fighting so even when we made mistakes, we didn’t compound them. I’m really happy with the way they competed this week for sure.”
Parker Hurley is a journalism junior and contributed this piece from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.