ERIN, Wis. – The No. 16 Texas A&M men’s golf team placed third at the Marquette Intercollegiate following Tuesday’s round of 1-over 289.
Aaron Pounds paced Texas A&M, finishing in tied for fourth place at 3-over 219. It marked his second top-5 of the season. He finished five strokes behind medalist Tyler Kowack of San Diego State. Pounds was the tournament’s top performer on par 5s, averaging 4.58 strokes.
Texas A&M was knotted with Florida on the final leaderboard. The Aggies and Gators owned tallies of 26-over 890, finishing six strokes behind champion Clemson (+20). San Diego State finished second at 23-over 887.
Kris Kuvaas, Alex Long and Pounds all penciled in scores of even 72 for the final round at the 7,551-yard Erin Hills course.
Wheaton Ennis was one stroke back, knotted for sixth place at 4-over 220. After an unfortunate double bogey on No. 9, he was strong to close out Tuesday’s round, shooting a 3-under 33 on the back nine. Ennis ranked fourth among the field in scoring on par 4s at 4.03.
In his first career appearance in the Aggie lineup, Long recorded a top 20. He also stumbled early in the final round but shot 4-under for the last 12 holes to finish tied for 19th place at 9-over 225.
Kuvaas tied for 30th place at 12-over 228. He ranked fourth in the field with 11 birdies, including three in the final loop.
After stumbling toward the end of Tuesday’s action, the Aggies regrouped and played 5-under for the back nine. The Maroon & White recorded six birdies and just one bogey in the home half of the round.
Shiv Parmar rounded out the Aggie starting five in 48th place. He closed out the tournament with a two-over 74 in Tuesday’s action. Playing as an individual, Jack Usner recorded a 69th place finish.
TEXAS A&M QUOTES
Head Coach Brian Kortan
On the strong finish to Tuesday’s round after front nine hiccups…
“Honestly there’s a good set of par 4s on the front side that we didn’t handle very well any day, so that made it kind of hard for us to get off to the start we needed. But the guys hung in there each day and fought their way around the golf course. It’s a championship test, so they played a good back nine. I think they had two bogeys, maybe, the whole back 9, which that was the cleaner golf we were looking for. They hung in there after taking some body blows early.”
On Alex Long’s performance in his first time in the lineup…
“Alex has been working hard. He’s a big strong athletic guy and we recruited him because we thought he could play. So this was nice, to see him do that on the road. He’s been playing better at home which is what you need to do to get in the lineup. It’s been nice to have some new faces play some good golf, including Shiv (Parmar) in his first couple tournaments and Kris (Kuvaas) came back with two really good rounds after getting worked over in the wind the first day.”
On Aaron (Pounds) and Wheaton (Ennis) becoming the consistent leaders at the top of the lineup…
“They are two guys doing a lot of really good things with their golf ball and in control of their game which is really nice to see. They both would tell you they were disappointed in how they putt this week and that kind of held them back and took them out of having a chance to win the tournament. They know they have things to work on to move forward.”
On having a short break to work on things after a pretty hectic fall…
“It’s nice catch our breath. It’s been a pretty fact-paced fall. We’ve played four incredible championship-style golf courses. It’s what we wanted to do to help these guys see what its’ going to take to be great in the end. That’s the design of the schedule. We got beat up a little bit here and there, but we also learned a lot and played some really good golf.”
UP NEXT…
The Aggies close out the fall slate Oct. 25-26 at the Steelwood Collegiate Invitational in Loxley, Alabama.
TEAM STANDINGS
1
Clemson
+20
303-292-289 = 884
2
San Diego State
+23
306-295-295 = 887
t-3
Texas A&M
+26
309-292-289 = 890
t-3
Florida
+26
317-287-287 = 890
5
San Diego State
+32
307-292-297 = 896
6
Marquette
+35
313-298-288 = 899
7
Minnesota
+37
319-291-291 = 901
8
Chattanooga
+44
314-293-301 = 908
9
Rutgers
+45
313-296-300 = 909
10
UAB
+51
313-304-298 = 915
11
UC Davis
+59
308-303-308 = 923
12
Wisconsin
+61
313-306-306 = 925
13
Nevada
+67
311-310-310 = 931
14
Siena
+80
331-298-315 = 944
TEXAS A&M SCORES
For the most up-to-date information on Texas A&M men’s golf, follow the Aggies on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
