After a relatively slow start to his 2014-15 campaign, Texas A&M senior golfer Greg Yates reclaimed the spotlight for the A&M men’s golf program with a victory Tuesday at the Valspar Collegiate Invitational, which fielded five of the nation’s top golf programs.
Yates shot three consecutive rounds of -4 (67) to post -12 (201) for the tournament, a score that secured the third victory of his career by three strokes over the nearest competitor, No. 20 Hank Lebioda of Florida State.
“He hit a ton of great shots but what was most impressive was that when he did hit a bad shot he was able to recover and never let a poor shot get him down,” head coach J.T. Higgins said.
Yates won the 2011 HBU Men’s Intercollegiate as a freshman and then the 2014 Sea Best Invitational as a junior.
Up until this point, however, the 2014-15 campaign had not exactly been kind to the Aggies 2013-14 All-Central Region Team member and second-team All SEC selection. He had no top-five finishes to date, after having led the team in that category a year ago, and had dropped all the way back to No. 181 in the nation’s rankings.
As a team, Texas A&M landed in fifth place with a cumulative score of +4 (856), 21 strokes shy of tournament champion No. 2 Florida State, which shot -17 (835). However, A&M did match the final round low score of -7 (277) in its closing efforts Tuesday to advance past two teams on the leaderboard.
Texas A&M returns to the links Easter Weekend as it prepares to host the Aggie Invitational.
