The Emory men’s golf team began their Fall 2016 campaign this past weekend with a sixth place finish at the Rhodes College Invitational at Tunica National Golf Club in Mississippi.
Emory finished near the middle of the pack, tying Berry College (Ga.) for sixth place out of 16 teams. The University of Texas at Tyler finished first, while Rhodes College (Tenn.) and Centre College (Ky.) ended the invitational in second and third place, respectively.
Five golfers represented Emory, with Eagles’ top performer junior Keenan Hickton, tying for ninth overall out of 96 total participants. Hickton put together a two-day score by finishing +1 Sunday and even par Monday for an overall tally of one over par.
“I think I played pretty well tee to green,” Hickton said of his even par round on Monday. “[I] hit a lot of fairways and greens during the tournament,” he added.
Hickton headlined all of Emory’s performances, finishing five strokes ahead of junior Sean Murphy, the second-best scoring golfer on the team, who carded +6 overall. The other three golfers who participated this weekend were sophomore Anthony Muscato (+7), sophomore Connor Yakubov (+10) and freshman Matt Organisak (+10).
Murphy was among the top performers on Sunday, but Monday did not yield the same results. Murphy got himself into trouble early, scratching out a double bogey on the second hole, followed by a triple bogey on the third. He, like many of his teammates, struggled finishing the round as he bogied the final two holes. Head Coach John Sjoberg affirmed that the team struggled in the later rounds on both days.
“[The team could] play the par fives a little bit better,” he said. It was a big downfall. The team didn’t take advantage of several opportunities there.”
Despite some mishaps throughout the invitational, Sjoberg remained optimistic, calling the performance a “solid start” and saying there were many valuable lessons to take from the invitational.
This year’s team is composed primarily of underclassmen. With only four juniors and no seniors, Emory looks to build experience for a team that has a lot of potential.
“Our sophomores are very experienced,” Sjoberg said. “They got to play a lot of golf last spring at a really high level. That’s certainly a benefit.”
Hickton shared much of the Sjoberg’s optimism.
“One positive I would take for the team is that we were hitting really well at one point during both of our rounds,” he said. “We didn’t finish nearly as well as we wanted to. We were one shot off the lead in the second round. That shows a lot of the potential we can having going forward.”
The team hopes to unleash that potential next week as they travel to Howey-In-The-Hills, Fla., to play in the NCAA Fall Preview at the Mission Inn Resort.
