University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Travel to Maui Jim Intercollegiate
9/20/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Golfstat Scoring
Minnesota's first road tournament of the season will be the Maui Jim Intercollegiate at Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree, Ariz. The event starts with a College-Am tournament on Thursday, Sept. 21. Intercollegiate play runs Friday, Sept. 22 to Sunday, Sept. 24 with 18 holes each day. Minnesota's tee times for the first two days will start at 10:20 a.m. CT.
The Gophers' travel squad had last weekend off of competition after opening the season at their home tournament Sept. 10-11. Minnesota placed 12th but had some bright spots.
"The energy and the enthusiasm of getting back into the mix and playing another college golf round was certainly evident," head coach John Carlson said. "We also played well at times. It was great to see our second-round score leading the day. We haven't had that in a while. To be able to do that against that many top teams in the country, I think it bodes well for the rest of the year as far as what we can do."
The field: Georgia State will host Arizona State, Augusta, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Hawai'i, Houston, Kansas, Kent State, Lipscomb, LSU, Nebraska and Rice in addition to the Gophers. The Sun Devils and Golden Flashes played in Minnesota's season-opening tournament.
The course: Desert Forest Golf Club will play at a par of 72 and 7,203 yards. The course features Sonoran Desert views and fairways lined by native desert vegetation.
"Desert Forest is a great golf course," Carlson said. "It's an older golf course. It's sandwiched between Mirabel, which is a golf community, and Desert Mountain. It's a very private golf club. It's tight off the tee. Off the beaten path is not a good play out there. It isn't on most golf courses, but you won't find your golf ball at Desert Forest. The golf course is dry, and it's going to present a challenge to all players."
The lineup: Riley Johnson, Angus Flanagan, Rúnar Arnorsson, Thomas Longbella and Peter Jones will play for the team. Gus Minkin and Charlie Duensing will compete as individuals. Johnson led the Gophers with a tie for 22nd at their season-opening home tournament. The other four counting players all joined Johnson in the lineup at the Gopher Invitational.
Flanagan started his first college tournament at the Gopher Invitational, tying for Minnesota's second-best finish, 31st. He moved up to second in this weekend's lineup.
"I've been impressed with all the freshmen, Angus in particular," Carlson said. "He showed a lot of poise, showed a lot of consistency. He drove the ball very well. Desert Forest is a tight golf course, so we're going to have to drive the ball consistently down there, and that's one of his strengths."
Flanagan would like to see more putts fall at Desert Forest, but felt he played well in his debut.
"Overall I enjoyed it a lot," he said. "It was a lot different than what I thought it was going to be. It's probably one of the bigger tournaments I've played in. I played in one last year down in Miami (with a lot of the top NCAA players). It felt a bit like that. If I'm playing in those every week, I'm not complaining. I'm playing with the best guys, and that's what I want to do."
Longbella was the Gophers' breakout freshman last season, playing in nine tournaments for the team. With that full year of experience, he knew what to expect coming into his sophomore season and has been in the lineup for both events so far. Longbella and Minnesota will aim for consistency in Arizona this weekend.
"For us it would be good to have four solid scores every day and not have that one outlying score that kind of holds us back," he said.
At the Gopher Invitational, all 12 Minnesota players competed at Windsong. At Desert Forest the Gophers will again have a chance to get more players than the five-man team onto the course.
"Since I got here, I've really wanted to try to give our players a great experience in college golf," Carlson said. "That really comes with playing as many tournaments as possible. Any time we get the opportunity to have individuals play, we'll make it happen."
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