Onto the Elite Eight Quarterfinals for the Vanderbilt Men’s Golf Team

Our super senior leader, Wells Williams, shot a 2 under par 70 yesterday and Jon Ed, Ryan Downes and Will Hartman all birdied the par 5, 18th to lead our team to a third place finish at 12 under par, and put us in the Elite Eight Quarterfinals, where we are facing No.6 Arizona right now. More on that in a second.

Auburn finished first at -26, Texas was next at -23, we finished -12, OK State and Florida tied for 4th at -11, ‘Zona was sixth at -3, and UCLA and Stanford rounded out the field at -2.

We are now in the match play on the La Costa Resort and Spa North course and in our matches: 1. Chase Nevins is tied with Zona’s Taishi Moto after 5 holes. 2. Jon Ed is 1 up on Tianyi Xiong after 5 holes. 3. Will is 3 Up on Filip Jakubcik through 4 holes. 4. Ryan Downes is 2 Up on William Wistrand through 4 holes. 5.Wells is all tied with Zach Pollo through 3 holes.  So we have a 4-1 lead right now.

Got a long way to go, but our guys are playing superb, confident golf right now. Wells is so solid, and Will and Jon Ed are playing like seniors instead of freshmen. Ryan, a sophomore from Longview, Massachusetts, has been good throughout the Championships, and Chase, a junior from Great Falls, Virginia, is getting his first start today, and doing well.

Our guys have been through the wars this season, both in the high level tournaments we’ve played in and the SEC Championships. We’ve taken our lumps at times, but are playing our best golf right now.

I’ll keep you apprised. Thanks for reading.