The cool breeze and Aloha Spirit of Hawaii could not calm down the UCSB men’s golf team last week, as they finished 11th at John Burns Intercollegiate in Wahiawa, Hawaii.

“It was a pretty easy golf course, senior Brian Hollenbeck said, “[but] we didn’t take advantage of the fairly easy conditions like most of the other teams did.”

After finishing 3rd at the Anteater Invitational to start the spring season, Santa Barbara has had back-to-back poor finishes, a relatively slow start for a team that aspires to win the Big West Championship. The players were obviously less than pleased.

“It was pretty disappointing,” junior Andrew Gunson said. “We need to play better.”

Freshman Glen Scher led the way for UCSB once again as he shot 218: two strokes over par. Scher shot a 68, two under par, in his last round to beat out junior Tyler Weir as the top Gaucho finisher. Weir shot 219.

At the top of the scoreboard, UNLV and Texas A&M were tied at 28 strokes under par after the third and final round. Texas A&M ended up winning the tournament in a playoff round.
The sub-standard 11th-place finish leaves the Gauchos contemplating potential fixes.

“We will look at issues individually so we can play better next week,” Hollenbeck said.

Santa Barbara will have plenty of time to sort itself out, as the Gauchos have a week off to prepare for the Braveheart Classic at UC Riverside. That tournament takes place on the first two days of March, which are Monday and Tuesday of next week. With the regular season winding down, UCSB will be looking to turn things around in time for the Big West Championships.

— John Greely contributed to this article.