From Bartram Trail Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, the Bob Jones University men's golf team finished runner-up at the NCCAA South Regional Championship. After the two-day tournament, the Bruins finished with a team score of 601.
"There were a lot of things to build on, but winning this event has become one of our regular season goals annually and we fell short of that again this year," said Head Coach Denny Scott. "Great respect to CIU's team. They shot a school record team score in Round Two and showed they were clearly the best team to represent this region at Nationals."
On Monday, the Bruins made their way to Georgia ready to compete against Paine College, Toccoa Falls College, and Columbia International University. The team got off to a great start with a sub 300 round. Brandon Autry led the field of golfers with a one under par score of 71. Josiah Swaffer ended the round in the top-five at 74 followed by Dakota Holt at 77, Nicholas Smith close behind at 77 and Peter Zhong with a score of 82.
As day two got underway, Nicholas Smith recorded back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth holes for a solid start. The birdies continued to come for the team on the front nine.
The Bruins looked for a strong push in the final holes as they looked to close the gap with Columbia International University. In the end, the Bruins finish runner-up at the NCCAA South Regional golf championship with scores of 298-303=601.
"While we had a solid first round (just six shots out of the lead), CIU was on a mission to repeat as champs," said Scott. "We had a slow start to the second round with a few "big numbers" early and CIU had three guys who shot under par on the day. This made it extremely difficult to catch them."
Coach Scott continued saying, "Brandon had another solid tournament with 71-74=145. Nicholas was consistent with 77-77=154. The rest of our guys each had one really solid round (Josiah-74, Peter-72, Dakota-76), but we needed to have our best from each golfer in both rounds in order to challenge for the title. We just didn't get that done."
Up next, the Bruins will compete at the Upstate Intercollegiate at Greer Golf Club next week while they wait to see if they have earned an at-large bid to the NCCAA National Tournament.
