Senior Daniel O'Loughlin is out to defend his individual title this weekend in Colorado Springs.
Photo by: Eric Evans Photography
Golfers To Open, Attempt To Defend Title, At Air Force
September 05, 2019 | Men's Golf
The 2019-20 season gets underway Friday
BOULDER — The University of Colorado men's golf team will open its 100th season of intercollegiate competition Friday just down Interstate 25 in the 51st Annual Gene Miranda Air Force Falcon Invitational.
The Buffaloes enter the meet as its defending champion, rallying on the third and final day a year ago to defeat Wyoming by five shots. CU senior Daniel O'Loughlin returns as the defending medalist, as he posted a 7-under par 209 total; after 36 holes he was in sixth place, three strokes out of the lead, but leapfrogged all ahead of him with a final round 69.
The 54-hole tournament will be played over three days on the USAFA's Eisenhower Blue course, a par-72 layout that spans some 7,511 yards. Play features 18 holes each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with 7:30 a.m. start times for the first two rounds and a 7:15 start on Sunday.
Eighteen schools will be competing in the event; in addition to CU and host Air Force, Boise State, Cal Baptist, Cal State Northridge, Drake, New Mexico State, Northern Colorado, SIU-Edwardsville, Southern Utah, Texas-El Paso, Texas State, UC Davis, Utah State, Utah Valley State, Valparaiso, Weber State and Wyoming, are entered in the field.
This will be the 37th time the Buffaloes are competing in this tournament, which was known as the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate prior to 1977. Colorado has now won the meet seven times, along with five runner-up finishes and five third-place efforts.
Colorado head coach Roy Edwards is beginning his 14th season as coach of the Buffaloes, with this year's edition of the Buffs returning eight lettermen from the '18-19 team. CU lost just player to graduation, Wilson Belk, who was CU's recipient of the Pac-12's Tom Hansen Medal, awarded to a male and female student-athlete at each conference school for the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
While last year's team, was one of the youngest in recent memory, this year's group has much more experience. There are four seniors, Daniel O'Loughlin, Ross Macdonald, Victor Bjorlow and Andre Leveque; two juniors Cole Krantz and Trevor Olkowski, two sophomores, Kristoffer Max and John Paterson, and redshirt freshman Adam Matteson.
There are two newcomers to the program, freshmen Jack Hughes (from Aspen) and Canon Olkowski (Las Vegas Faith Lutheran), the younger brother of Trevor.
"We are very excited to get the season started," Edwards said. "The team has worked very hard since early in the spring and throughout the summer getting better and competing. Our roster is very competitive from top to bottom and we expect this to be a big strength of ours throughout the year. John Paterson won our qualifier with several guys right in the mix with him, including our standout senior, Daniel O'Loughlin."
"It is a very motivated group to play well," he continued. "We have some high expectations and our results will be manifested by our work ethic, attitude, focus, discipline, and accountability of each other. It is a fun team to be around and they really feed off of each other."
For the inaugural tournament of the year, Edwards will have Paterson, O'Loughlin, Krantz, Matteson and Bjorlow play the 1-through-5 positions to account for team scoring, while Macdonald and Max will play as individuals. All but Matteson, who will make his collegiate debut, competed in last year's event.
NOTES: The Buffaloes enter the year with 15th major tournament wins under Edwards, second only to the late Mark Simpson, who saw his teams win 16 during his tenure as coach from 1977 until his death in 2005 … When Gary Woodland won the U.S. Open back in June, he put Edwards in the history books as one of only two coaches in NCAA golf history to coach two different players who won the Fed Ex Cup (Brandt Snedeker in 2012) and a major championship (Woodland's win this year). Edwards is the only one of the pair to have two players from two different schools (Vanderbilt and Kansas, respectively) … O'Loughlin begins his senior year with a 71.73 stroke average for 75 rounds; he averaged 71.54 as a sophomore and 71.90 last year, as he will bid to become the first player in CU history to record three sub-72.0 seasons in average (he's already set the school record for the most rounds at the start of career without an 80).
The Buffaloes enter the meet as its defending champion, rallying on the third and final day a year ago to defeat Wyoming by five shots. CU senior Daniel O'Loughlin returns as the defending medalist, as he posted a 7-under par 209 total; after 36 holes he was in sixth place, three strokes out of the lead, but leapfrogged all ahead of him with a final round 69.
The 54-hole tournament will be played over three days on the USAFA's Eisenhower Blue course, a par-72 layout that spans some 7,511 yards. Play features 18 holes each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with 7:30 a.m. start times for the first two rounds and a 7:15 start on Sunday.
Eighteen schools will be competing in the event; in addition to CU and host Air Force, Boise State, Cal Baptist, Cal State Northridge, Drake, New Mexico State, Northern Colorado, SIU-Edwardsville, Southern Utah, Texas-El Paso, Texas State, UC Davis, Utah State, Utah Valley State, Valparaiso, Weber State and Wyoming, are entered in the field.
This will be the 37th time the Buffaloes are competing in this tournament, which was known as the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate prior to 1977. Colorado has now won the meet seven times, along with five runner-up finishes and five third-place efforts.
Colorado head coach Roy Edwards is beginning his 14th season as coach of the Buffaloes, with this year's edition of the Buffs returning eight lettermen from the '18-19 team. CU lost just player to graduation, Wilson Belk, who was CU's recipient of the Pac-12's Tom Hansen Medal, awarded to a male and female student-athlete at each conference school for the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
While last year's team, was one of the youngest in recent memory, this year's group has much more experience. There are four seniors, Daniel O'Loughlin, Ross Macdonald, Victor Bjorlow and Andre Leveque; two juniors Cole Krantz and Trevor Olkowski, two sophomores, Kristoffer Max and John Paterson, and redshirt freshman Adam Matteson.
There are two newcomers to the program, freshmen Jack Hughes (from Aspen) and Canon Olkowski (Las Vegas Faith Lutheran), the younger brother of Trevor.
"We are very excited to get the season started," Edwards said. "The team has worked very hard since early in the spring and throughout the summer getting better and competing. Our roster is very competitive from top to bottom and we expect this to be a big strength of ours throughout the year. John Paterson won our qualifier with several guys right in the mix with him, including our standout senior, Daniel O'Loughlin."
"It is a very motivated group to play well," he continued. "We have some high expectations and our results will be manifested by our work ethic, attitude, focus, discipline, and accountability of each other. It is a fun team to be around and they really feed off of each other."
For the inaugural tournament of the year, Edwards will have Paterson, O'Loughlin, Krantz, Matteson and Bjorlow play the 1-through-5 positions to account for team scoring, while Macdonald and Max will play as individuals. All but Matteson, who will make his collegiate debut, competed in last year's event.
NOTES: The Buffaloes enter the year with 15th major tournament wins under Edwards, second only to the late Mark Simpson, who saw his teams win 16 during his tenure as coach from 1977 until his death in 2005 … When Gary Woodland won the U.S. Open back in June, he put Edwards in the history books as one of only two coaches in NCAA golf history to coach two different players who won the Fed Ex Cup (Brandt Snedeker in 2012) and a major championship (Woodland's win this year). Edwards is the only one of the pair to have two players from two different schools (Vanderbilt and Kansas, respectively) … O'Loughlin begins his senior year with a 71.73 stroke average for 75 rounds; he averaged 71.54 as a sophomore and 71.90 last year, as he will bid to become the first player in CU history to record three sub-72.0 seasons in average (he's already set the school record for the most rounds at the start of career without an 80).
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