Men’s golf ends fall season with 5th place finish

The men’s golf team competed in the Herb Wimbley Intercollegiate in Las Cruces, N.M. this week. The team took home fifth place after falling just short of Nevada for fourth place. The Jayhawks were led strongly by junior Alex Gutesha, who shot a final round score of even par 71 to place eighth individually. This score came the day after he posted a career best 18-hole score of 66. Gutesha found success on the par fives at the New Mexico golf course.

“The par fives are fairly short, so you can take advantage of them if you hit a good drive,” said Gutesha. “My first and fourth holes were par fives. I just played them the way you’re supposed to. I played here in two tournaments before college, so I’m pretty familiar with the course. I know where I have to miss, so I feel comfortable. I have good feelings when I get here and I expect to play well.”

Kansas also had four other golfers place in the top 30 at this tournament. Junior Chris Gilbert shot a three-round collective score of 213 to place 18th. Senior Doug Quinones posted a score of 70 in the final round to earn him 26th place. After a strong start of shooting a consecutive round of 69 strokes, junior Paul Harris shot an 80 on the final day and found himself tied for 30th. Freshman Dylan McClure also helped out the Jayhawks by shooting a final round score of 79 to place tied for 78th.

Coach Kit Grove was very pleased with how his team played and is excited for what is to come for the spring season.

“Doug, Chris and Alex went out and played pretty solid golf today,” said Grove. “For the three of them to get around the course at even-par is good, positive stuff for us. Obviously, yesterday was our best day of the year. We got a good team effort; nine of our 10 scores were 74 or better. At the end of the day, you look at the board and see that Nevada nipped you by one, and that’s disappointing, but the week as a whole was much better than the last two events. That allows us to end on a positive note going into the spring.”

Grove also knows that the team has a lot to improve on before the spring season.

“We did a lot of stuff well, but obviously there are a lot of things we have to work on,” said Grove. “They’re going to need to put in the time in the offseason. We have to get sharper. They’ve got to continue to do the stuff that we’ve been working on the past couple weeks through the offseason.”

The Jayhawks will be on a short hiatus until they kick off their spring season on March 5 where they will compete in the Louisiana Classic in Lafayette, La.

Edited by Stefanie Penn

• Updated Oct. 25, 2011 at 3:07 am