After finishing within the top three teams in conference play this season, Friends University Falcon golf advanced to the NAIA Region IV Tournament held April 28-29 at Sunflower Hills Golf Course in Bonner Springs. This year’s performance marked the second Region IV tournament appearance for the Falcons in the past three years.

Playing on a complicated course with an abundance of trees and difficult greens, the Falcons ended the tournament and their season with a third place team finish. Like usual, despite a nice day for the practice round, both days of the tournament were cold and windy. After the first day and 36 holes in less than favorable conditions, the Falcons sat in third place overall. 

“We never really seemed to get anything going, but that probably had something to do with the weather and the greens being so difficult to putt on,” stated Falcon head coach Aaron Winter.

After rebounding in day two to improve on Monday’s score, the Falcons were still unable to make up enough ground to catch either of the leaders, resulting in the third place overall finish for the Falcons. 

On an individual note, despite suffering from the flu with doubts about his ability to even participate in the tournament, junior Nathan Read missed a tie for first by merely one shot and ended up taking fifth place overall.   

Only the winning team and winning individual advance to the national tournament through regional play, so the tournament concluded the Falcons’ 2008 season.  However, the Falcons look forward to next year with a solid core group of players returning in 2009.

Team Results:

·        Finished 3^rd out of 5 teams

·        Round 1 Score = 328

·        Round 2 Score = 319

·        Round 3 Score = 312

·        Total Score = 959

Individual Results:

·        Nathan Read                      81 – 71 – 73 = 225             5/29

·        Andy Dome                        82 – 84 – 79 = 245             14/29

·        Jesse Schellenberg          86 – 80 – 80 = 246             15/29

·        Brian Bergkamp                83 – 85 – 80 = 248             17/29

·        Justin Speer                       82 – 84 – 83 = 249             18/29