Aggies Post Fourth Place Showing at Arizona Intercollegiate

Monday, January 23

Tucson, Ariz.

All Day

Texas A&M

Arizona Intercollegiate

Photo by: Texas A&M Athletics

Jan 24, 2017 | Men's Golf

Final Results

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

TUSCON, Ariz. – Texas A&M's men's golf climbed three spots on the leaderboard Tuesday during the final day of competition at the Arizona Intercollegiate from Sewailo Golf Club to finish the event in fourth place.

The Aggies (303-295-283=881, +29) sat in seventh place before the resumption of the second round early Tuesday morning. After a high scoring first day on Monday with no teams shooting under par, Texas A&M shot one-below as a team during the concluding round to overtake New Mexico, BYU and California in the in the team standings. It marked A&M's fifth top-five finish in as many tries for the 2016-17 campaign.

Oregon, the reigning NCAA national champs, took the event with a 12-shot victory over second place Pepperdine. Washington, the third place finisher, held an eight-stroke advantage over Texas A&M.

"I'm proud of the way we played today," Texas A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. "The conditions were perfect and it's nice that we're able to play well when it's perfect, but we put ourselves behind the eight ball playing so poorly in the wind yesterday. We've got a lot to work on."

Chandler Phillips (76-72-69=217, +4) led the Texas A&M cohort by finishing in a tie for ninth place, giving the sophomore top-10 finishes in four of the five events on the season. Phillips was eight shots back of tournament champion, Wyndham Clark of Oregon.

Junior Andrew Paysse (76-73-69=218, -2) concluded the event with a two-under performance that helped him climb 11 spots into a share of 12^th, his best finish of the season.

In his first appearance since joining the team over winter break, freshman Dan Erickson (79-74-70=220, +10) took home a share of 26^th place after shooting one-under in the final round. Sophomore Brandon Smith (73-80-75=225, +4) carded a 75 on the final day putting him in a tie for 49^th on the leaderboard. Rounding out the lineup, Cameron Champ (78-76-77=231, +18) finished in tie for 60^th.

Texas A&M also had three golfers competing in the Arizona Medalist Intercollegiate from Starr Pass Golf Course. Kavan Eubank finished in a tie for 10^th among the 30 participants. Josh Gliege and Max Miller also competed, finishing in shares of 16^th and 23^rd, respectively.

"We learned a lot this week," added Higgins. "We are going to get back to work and make some improvements. I can say that we won't be the same team in May that we are now. I did like the fight I saw today, we played hard and made a lot of birdies. We still managed to hit a lot of bad shots because of poor decisions, but otherwise it was a pretty strong performance."

After a few weeks off from competition, the Aggies will travel to Hawai'i for the John A. Burns Intercollegiate. Play from Wailua Golf Club begins on February 15.