No. 14 Texas A&M men’s golf was in Palm Springs, Florida, this week competing in the Valspar Collegiate Invitational. Despite leading by three shots after day one, the Aggies stumbled on day two, dropping to fifth place and could not recover on the third day of competition, ending the tournament in sixth place with a total score of 15-over par. No. 10 Wake Forest won the tournament by one shot with a final score of 7-over par.
“We really didn’t play very well today and still shot even par as a team, so in reality we’re pretty encouraged but we’re not happy with the finish,” head coach J.T. Higgins told 12thman.com, “I feel like we’re better than that. This was probably our worst showing of the year and to only finish eight shots away from winning shows that we’ve got a team capable of doing some big things.”
Sophomore Andrew Paysse was the top Aggie finisher and got his best finish of the season, notching a tie for 12th place with a final score of 2-over par. Paysse managed to shoot par or better in two of his rounds and finished inside the top-10 in par 5 scoring this week.
“Andrew had a great showing,” Higgins added to his comments to 12thman.com, “Finishing top-20 in that field is really nice and hopefully the start of good things to come for him. He’s been working extremely hard and it’s nice to see him have some great results.”
Cameron Champ, reigning co-SEC golfer of the week, snagged his sixth top-20 finish of the season. Champ started his week slow, but he shot 1-under par on day three, jumping up eight places and finishing in a tie for 18th with a total score of 4-over par. The junior was tied for sixth in par-5 scoring and also holed 13 birdies for the tournament, third most all week.
Sophomore Chandler Phillips, who finished runner-up at this tournament last year, had one of his quieter tournaments of the season. An 8-over par second round dropped him well down the leaderboard, however steadier play on day three allowed him to salvage a tie for 35th place by the time play ended on day three. Earlier this week, Phillips was rewarded for his strong play this season, which includes two individual victories as he was named to Team USA for the 2017 Arnold Palmer Cup, held this summer in Atlanta.
Freshman Dan Erickson started his tournament well, however two consecutive rounds of 75 dropped him into a tie for 40th by tournament’s end. Kavan Eubank had a nightmare start to his week, carding an 11-over par score of 82 in his first round. The junior did manage to shoot even par on day three though, finishing in a tie for 60th place. Eubank’s was also the only Aggie to record an eagle for the tournament.
Sophomore Max Miller competed as an individual this week, however three rounds in the upper 70s placed him in a tie for 68th.
“We’ve got to clean some things up because we were pretty sloppy the past couple days,” Higgins added, “We’re going to get home and back to work on the basics to get ready for the Aggie Invitational.”
Texas A&M will be hosting the Aggie Invitational, the team’s only home event of the season, at the Traditions Club in Bryan, Texas on April 1. This is the team’s last tuneup before the SEC Championships later that month.
