Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
Mason Rudolph Championship
Men's Golf finishes 11th at Vanderbilt Invitational
04/02/2017 | 6:56:00 | Men's Golf
The Southern Illinois men's golf team finished in 11th place at 31-over par after the final round on Sunday at the Mason Rudolph Invitational, hosted by Vanderbilt.
Florida (-30) slipped past Alabama (-29) to claim the team title, while Vanderbilt (-26) was close behind. The 14-team field included seven teams among the top 52 in the nation.Â
"The great thing about these tournaments we've played in this spring is our guys get to compare their game against the best in college golf," said SIU head coach Justin Fetcho. "If we had scheduled ourselves against some weaker fields, maybe they could have some so-called better results, but it wouldn't be as much of a confidence-builder."
SIU's top finisher was Peyton Wilhoit (+5), who tied for 40th place overall. He had 10 pars, three birdies and five bogeys in today's round. Teammate Brandon Carlson (+9) finished tied for 49th place, but he had the distinction of being the only golfer in the field to eagle two holes. Wilhoit and Carlson were among the top golfers in the tournament on par 5 holes with both finishing 6-under par.
"If we can create a blend of Brandon's aggressiveness with Peyton's consistency in all of our guys, we'll be a tough team every time we tee it up," Fetcho said.Â
SIU was the only team in the field that didn't have a golfer shoot an under-par round.
"We did some really good things — our ball-striking was pretty good," Fetcho said. "We did not putt the ball very well throughout the entire tournament, too many three-putts, didn't capitalize when we hit it close."
The Salukis are back in action on April 10-12 at the Gary Koch Invitational in Gastonia, North Carolina.
"This is an exciting part of our season and we want to kind of hit our stride come April," Fetcho said. "This was a good event for us at this time of the year. It's a good golf course, a lot of good teams. We were a little too passive and worried about making mistakes instead of attacking the golf course. I see it at home, but we get in our own way sometimes at tournaments. Hopefully, that's something that we can learn from."
TEAM SCORES
1 Florida 276 275 271 822 -30
2 Alabama 278 272 273 823 -29
3 Vanderbilt 277 277 272 826 -26
4 Duke 280 280 280 840 -12
T5 Middle Tennessee St. 282 281 280 843 -9
T5 Missouri 283 277 283 843 -9
7 Iowa 282 284 288 854 +2
8 Troy 288 289 282 859 +7
9 Liberty 286 286 290 862 +10
10 East Tennessee St. 297 287 294 878 +26
11 Southern Illinois 291 295 297 883 +31
12 Miami University(OH) 295 296 298 889 +37
13 Belmont 299 299 294 892 +40
14 Ball State 303 301 297 901 +49
SIU SCORES
T40 Peyton Wilhoit (+5) 72 73 73 218
T49 Brandon Carlson (+9) 71 74 77 222
T57 Matt Greenfield (+11) 72 79 73 224
59 Frankie Thomas (+12) 76 74 75 225
T68 Sam Meek (+16) 79 74 76 229
