It has been an up and down spring season for the BYU men’s golf team, after the Cougars started the year with a first-place finish at the Arizona N.I.T. event and got a second-place finish from former State Am champ Simon Kwon at Tucson National Resort.
Last October, BYU won the Big 12 Match Play tournament at Oaks Country Club in Houston and placed second at the Leadership and Golf Collegiate in Monterey, California, so the talent is clearly there.
However, a disappointing ninth-place finish at the Big 12 Championships in April left a bad taste in the Cougars’ mouths. As a result, BYU is not being given much of a chance to make some noise in the NCAA Regionals, which will be contested this week at six sites throughout the country.
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The top five teams from each regional and the lowest scoring individual not on one of those teams will advance to the NCAA National Championships May 23-28 at Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California.
BYU will compete as a No. 6 seed in the Reno (Nevada) Regional at Montreux Golf and Country Club. That regional begins Monday and runs through Wednesday.
“It’s that time of year,” said BYU coach Bruce Brockbank. “Every year we shoot for the NCAA Championship. I am excited for the guys to be able to have a chance, and going to Reno is great since it is fairly close to home and is similar to where we play here in Provo, especially because of the elevation.”
The par-72 Montreux course, which is quite lengthy at 7,500 yards, sits at 5,500 feet above sea level, while Provo’s elevation is 4,551 feet.
“This is great for us. I have been on the course and my brother has played a PGA Tour event there, so I have walked around the course and been able to see that it is similar to some courses we play up in Park City with the shifting elevation,” BYU director of golf Todd Miller said in a school news release. “It is close to home, so it will be easy for the guys to stay ready.”
Other teams in Reno this week are No. 4 Texas, No. 9 Virginia, No. 16 Alabama and No. 21 Duke, along with Mississippi State, Santa Clara, Grand Canyon, San Diego, East Tennessee State, Central Arkansas, Sam Houston and Fairfield.
BYU’s starting lineup includes the aforementioned Kwon, along with 2024 State Am champ Cole Ponich, 2022 State Am champ Zac Jones, junior Tyson Shelley and sophomore Peter Kim. Kevin Wu will be there as a substitute.
Kim, a Skyline High product who was medalist at the Goodwin Tournament at Stanford, California, in late March, said the low seeding for the Cougars is “not a big deal to us” and that they’ve shown the ability to thrive as an underdog.
“We just have to play well that week and see if we can make it into the top five,” Kim said.
It will be BYU’s 27th appearance in an NCAA Regional since the format was introduced in 1989.
The Cougars entered the Big 12 tournament at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with high hopes, but disastrous second and third rounds caused them to plummet down the leader board. They did shoot a 1-under 279 in the final round to rise from 12th to ninth.
“This was a disappointing performance for our team,” Miller said. “We challenged the team … to build some confidence as we prepare for regionals and shoot a low (final) round today. I am pleased with how they responded. It was deflating to finish ninth, but we are excited for what is to come.
“This is a great team and I know we all believe that we can advance to the National Championship.”
Jones finished 11th individually in Tulsa, his second-best finish of the season. Ponich tied for 34th, Kim tied for 46th and Kwon finished 63rd.
Zac Jones hits out of a sand trap as he and Simon Kwon play in Match play for the 124th Utah State Amateur Championship at Soldier Hollow Golf Course in Midway on Saturday, July 16, 2022. Jones won 4 and 3. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
