Utah men’s golf finished ninth out of 14 teams this weekend at the Maui Jim invitational in what was their first tournament of the season.

Overall, the Utes shot 10 under as a team with a total of 830 strokes. It was a steady performance as the Utes were in ninth after the first round but bounced back in impressive fashion the second day as they knocked in an impressive 20 birdies.

20 seemed to be the magic number as the team once again sunk 20 birdies to move up one spot on the final day of the tournament from tenth to ninth.

As far as individual performances go, Tristan Mandur managed a top 20 finish as he ended up 17th overall at 8-under (202). Mandur even had an eagle on the second day of the tournament and was the best player on the team at this invitational according to head coach Garrett Clegg.

Jesper Von Reedtz and Blake Tomlinson had second and third place finishes on the team with 31st (tied) and 58th overall placements in the tournament. Von Reedtz shot a respectable 206, and had played his best on day 2 with 6 birdies, shooting 4-under with 66 strokes. Tomlinson also came on strong during the latter legs of the tournament, shooting 68 on days two and three despite struggling initially.

Javier Barcos and Braxton Watts rounded out the team with 64th (tied) and 83rd place finishes respectively at the invitational. Barcos finished with a total of 212 strokes (2-under) while Watts ended at 11-over (221). It also should be noted that this was Watts first official tournament.

Martín León also competed in the tournament as an individual and finished 4-over and 71st overall. León had previously won the Utah State Amateur Golf Championship over the summer and is one of the promising young talents on this men’s team.

Overall, Clegg was not pleased with the 9th place finish in the tournament as there were only 14 teams competing at the Maui Jim Invitational. However, he finished his quote in the press release with some optimism.

“I’m confident we will come back and perform better in two weeks at the Mark Simpson,” Clegg said to Utah Athletics. “At the end of the day though, we need to play better golf than we did this week.”

While it wasn’t a particularly impressive overall performance there was some stand out moments for the Utes especially in the second and third rounds of the tournament. This is a particularly young team with four freshman and two juniors, with the upperclassmen having the top finishes with the team.

There is some hope for optimism heading into the next tournament in Denver as there were some flashes from the younger talents and solid play from the more experienced members of the team. The Mark Simpson Collegiate will begin on Sept. 27 and will be only the second tournament for the Utes this season.

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