Teddy Kaste-
The Gustavus’ Men’s Golf Team returned to the winner’s circle this past weekend, securing the top spot at the Augsburg Invitational with a two-day total of 600 to claim the victory by 9 strokes. This victory marks the first two-day tournament victory for Gustavus golf since 2019, and was the first tournament of the 2024-2025 season for the Gusties. The Women’s Team also kicked off their season this past weekend, taking 6th out of 13 at the St. Benedict Invitational.
It was a busy week in preparation for the tournaments as both the Men’s and Women’s Teams played 3 rounds of “qualifying” in order to determine the “A” and “B” teams for the first tournament of the year. Junior Cole Paulson said, “To me, I see qualifying as almost a pre-tournament, it puts me in the right headspace to play competitively, and really helps get us used to competitive golf before we play a real tournament.” After competing with each other all week, the Gusties were finally able to compete with the other golf teams on the weekend.
In college golf, a team can have up to five people. The team score is then calculated by adding up the best four scores out of the five available golfers, resulting in “throwing away” one score. On day one, Gustavus’ Men shot a score of 300 to put them in the lead by 2 strokes. Sophomore Blake Forrest said about day one: “It was good that we had the lead, but two strokes is hardly anything. Going into day two we wanted to have a completely fresh start, and not think about the lead because a two-stroke lead is almost the same as being tied.”
Gustavus’ Men shot the same score on day two, a 300, while the other teams struggled and shot worse than their day one total to give Gustavus the win by 9 strokes. When asked about why the scores were higher on day two compared to day one for everyone else, Senior Cameron Longie stated, “It all had to do with pin positions. They put the pins in extremely difficult spots on day 2 leading to higher scores. On that course, a par was a very good score so I believe we won due to our disciplined smart approach which led to a lot of pars.” The Gustavus Men’s Golf Team left the course smiling on Sunday, as they had won a golf tournament before having to attend their first class of the year.
Gustavus came into the tournament ranked No. 25 in the nation, and with the win defeated No. 22 Wisconsin Eau-Claire, and No. 12 St. Johns (MN). The Gustavus Men will continue their season at Pioneer Creek next week in the Bethel invitational where they will see the reigning MIAC champions and No. 15 ranked Bethel for the first time this season. The Women’s Golf Team will play at Eau-Claire next weekend and look to defend their title from 2023.