• Sophomore Brendan MacDougall finished second and broke the HPU 54-hole stroke record shooting a -8 (205).
• MacDougall finished the day with four birdies on his last five holes and missed HPU’s low round against par by just one stroke with a -5 (66).
• High Point earned its first top-10 finish of the season placing seventh in the tournament.
BURLINGTON, N.C. – High Point University men’s golf sophomore Brendan MacDougall finished the Phoenix Invitational with a flurry of birdies to set a new school record while placing second in the event on Tuesday.
The Calgary, Alberta native entered the day at -4 and in sixth and that’s where he sat making the turn towards the back nine on the Alamance Country Club course. But the sophomore caught fire birdieing the 11th before adding birdies on four of his final five holes to close the day with a -5 (66).
Due to the late run, MacDougall surged past Scott Newton’s and Chase Wilson’s shared mark of 206 to break HPU’s Division I stroke record shooting 205 (-8). Overall, the Panthers carded a 294 on the day to finish the 16-team tournament in seventh (287-280-294, +9) as host Elon claimed the title (-11). The 861 strokes is tied for fourth in the Panthers’ time competing at the Division I level.
“Obviously, we weren’t totally thrilled with the way we finished, but we can take a lot of positives from this tournament,” head coach Brady Gregor said. “We put ourselves in the final group, which gave us a chance to compete to win today. We also had a couple of guys out due to injury and we had some other guys step into the lineup and perform pretty well. Justin Lenzini, for example, played great finishing third for us despite it being his first time in the lineup this fall. We have a quick turnaround headed into Camden and we’ll look to build off the momentum we built the last two days.”
MacDougall’s second-place finish is the best of his time at HPU and gives him his fifth top-10 finish as a Panther and his second in two tournaments this fall. Meanwhile, his 66 is the fourth-best mark in HPU’s Division I era, just one stroke off a three-way tie for the record. His 56-hole -8 is the third lowest against-par score as Newton and Wilson both finished tournaments -10.
“The highlight of the tournament was the continued great play from Brendan especially in the last two rounds,” Gregor continued. “He not only finished second in a strong field but broke the 54-hole total stroke record for our program. It was an awesome event for him and I’m excited to see what he does the rest of the season.”
Behind MacDougall, sophomore RJ Bartolomucci carded a third-round 75 (+4) to finish the event 34th (69-72-75, 216). Meanwhile, sophomore Justin Lenzini was just three strokes back tying for 40th in the event (74-71-74, 219).
The fourth of HPU’s four sophomores, Alec Weary, carded his highest round of the weekend (79) on Tuesday and tied for 49th (72-70-79, 221). Rounding out the lineup, freshman Ryan Crema also shot a third-round 79 to finish tied for 86th (81-72-79, 232),
Playing as individuals, freshman Ethan Willis shot a 78 to tie for 66th (71-76-78, 225) as junior Davis Kiger carded a 76 to place in a tie for 76th (74-77-76, 227).
After having two weeks between events, High Point has a quick turnaround this week as they will head to Camden Collegiate Invitational hosted by South Carolina on Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 20-21).