After a hard day of work in the desert, Joe Jensen took his Wyoming team to the shade of a nearby tree and let them take a breath of relief. The second round of the National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, was a battle for the Cowboys. Jensen wanted his men to know he was proud of the fight.
“I am proud of my group because I know we slipped, and for them to fight back the bulk of the day, which they did a great job of, and so as a coach that makes me proud,” he said. “Because as I told them, their attitude stayed the same, they were still engaged, we didn’t get off to the best start but we kept fighting and fighting.”
Wyoming started the day with a one-shot lead and ended it four shots behind second-round leader Texas State. Oh, but the second round of the inaugural NGI was so much more complicated than that.
As the day wore on, seven different teams rotated through the lead. On a day like this, every shot counts, and Wyoming had to truly grind.
“There were a lot of hard-fought pars on par 5s, and the strategy,” Jensen said, “and I could go on and on and on about the thought process of gosh, let’s just make par on this and get out of here.”
To Jensen, playing for the inaugural NGI title is an “unbelievable” feeling – so much so that he knows he’ll have to work not to betray the process that helped get his team to this point. Don’t expect Jensen’s enthusiasm level to change or his team’s morning routines to waiver.
Like Jensen, Texas State head coach Shane Howell liked the fight he saw in his team, particularly on the back nine. The Bobcats turned around a shaky opening stretch and went 11 under coming in to take the lead.
“Proud of the guys for hanging in there after an up-and-down front nine today,” he said. “It allowed them to come home strong on the back nine and give them a chance tomorrow.
“We are so grateful for the opportunity to be at the NGI and the guys are looking forward to the final round tomorrow.”
On Sunday, Utah Valley will join Wyoming and Texas State in the final grouping. The Wolverines, at 5 under, trail by six. Head coach Chris Curran’s squad has had a lot of experience in that position this season, having won three tournaments in the spring season.
“I think our message is just going to be, hey you’re not sleeping with the lead, you’ve got no pressure, let’s come out firing tomorrow and try to go shoot the lowest score that we can and count them up at the end,” he said.
In a lot of ways, this Utah Valley team has shattered the norms for Wolverine golf. Brady McKinlay won four individual titles in a row in the fall and qualified for an NCAA regional, making him ineligible to compete this week. Caden Weber won the Bash at the Beach in March. Curran thinks the whole roster fed off those performances – particularly McKinlay’s stretch.
“They practice with him and play with him every day and see what he’s doing and they’re like, well I can hang with him,” Curran said. “It really elevated the expectation level of everybody else.”
For the first time in a decade coaching Utah Valley, Curran thinks any guy in the starting five could win the individual title if he gets hot. This week, Curran is discovering just how deep his roster goes with McKinlay out as well as Kai Iguchi, who competed in the PGA WORKS Individual Collegiate Championship.
“It’s kind of like a new crew for us,” Curran said. “We were joking around a little bit saying this is the first qualifier for next year just with who we’ve brought.”
Utah Valley’s NGI lineup includes redshirt freshman Braden O’Grady, who has never teed it up in competition with the Wolverines before this week. O’Grady transferred to Utah Valley in December after a year at Western Washington and was just outside the traveling squad throughout the spring season.
“He never really got a chance to get into the lineup and then kind of with how things have transpired, we were like, we’ve got to get this kid some reps,” Curran said. “He’s come in and done a great job for us.”
Utah Valley is on track to break its program scoring record at the NGI this week, which is just another line in a historic season.
This is Utah Valley’s first postseason appearance, and they’re drawing some inspiration – and competition – from the men’s basketball program. In March, the Wolverines advanced to the semifinals of the National Invitational Tournament, the event comparable to the NGI in men’s golf.
“We’re now kind of joking that well, we have to do better than our basketball team did,” Curran said. “We have to go win this thing.”
