Less than a week removed from its worst team finish of the 2014-15 campaign, the Texas A&M men’s golf team recaptured some momentum with a fourth place finish on Monday at the Talis Park Challenge in Naples, Florida.
The Aggies, who shot a team score of +6 (284, 283, 291; 858), were still 16 strokes behind fellow Southeastern Conference foe No. 5 Vanderbilt, who seized second place at -10 (276, 284, 282; 842). They also fell 20 strokes behind another Southeastern Conference member and this week’s event champion, No. 7 Louisiana State University, who shot -14 (286, 276, 276; 838).
However, this week’s shortcoming appears much more favorable when compared to A&M’s 43 stroke deficit to the No. 3 University of Texas in the Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters last week. A&M head coach J.T. Higgins lauded his team’s effort, but still feels his squad has yet to play to their potential this season.
“We had too many big numbers, too many penalty shots, for us to compete for the team title,” Higgins said. “Things are improving. We’ve said it a lot, but if we can start eliminating some of our mistakes we feel like we can play with anybody.”
Junior golfer Adrià Arnaus continued his success on the individualist leaderboard with a T2 finish this week, his third top five finish of his career. Arnaus fired rounds of -5, -2 and +2 (66, 69, 73) to finish at -5 (208), one stroke shy of the University of Toledo’s Chris Selfridge, who shot -6 (73, 67, 67; 207).
Arnaus, who started his round at the fourth hole as part of the shotgun start, bogeyed two of his first 11 holes before finding his first birdie at the par five on hole No. 15, which put him back at -6 for the tournament. But Arnaus immediately gave one back on the ensuing par four, 16th and then proceeded to par out for the three-way tie for second place.
Nonetheless, with two sub-70 rounds at this week’s Talis Park Challenge, Arnaus’s 2014-15 scoring average now drops to 72.08, the lowest on the team. Arnaus has climbed to No. 78 nationally in Golf Week’s latest individual player rankings, making him the highest ranked Aggie men’s golfer as well.
“Adrià is playing outstanding golf,” Higgins said. “He hit a ball out of bounds on his seventh hole of the day, a reachable par-five, and ended up make a good bogie, but that shot probably hurt him more than anything else. He put together a really great tournament and carried us on his back all week. He’s really having a phenomenal season.”
Texas A&M returns to the links in Palm City, Florida on March 23 at the Valspar Collegiate Invitational.