Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s men’s golf team will head out March 24 to Round Rock for the Linda Lowry Invitational.
The invitational is the third tournament the Jaguars are participating in this season.
The Red River Athletic Conference has schools compete in three rounds of stroke play. Stroke play means every stroke counts toward the final score of the tournament. The group with the lowest amount of strokes wins the tournament.
The Jaguars’ previous tournament was in Kerrville at the Schreiner Spring Invitational where they placed third.
“We’re definitely heading in the right direction,” said head men’s golf coach Christie Cano. “Doing a lot of positive things and have put ourselves in a position to win our first golf tournament.”
The Schreiner Spring Invitational was only one round due to strong winds.
The Club at Comanche Trace in Kerrville has a course par of 72. Par is the number of strokes golfers take in a round, with each of the 18 holes having a par to achieve.
The lower a golfer’s score is than par, the better.
Junior accounting major, Aden Morales and senior finance major, Jacob Pena led the Jags, shooting a score of 73, or one over par. Morales and Pena tied for eighth place out of the 52-player field in the player leaderboard.
Pena’s performance at the Schreiner Spring Invitational ranked him at 99 in the nation.
The Schreiner Spring Invitational featured top nationally ranked teams such as the No. 3-ranked Odessa, and No. 20-ranked Houston-Victoria.
The Jaguars have finished top five in tournament play in their last three competitions.
At the TPC Spring Invitational at the Oaks Course at TPC in San Antonio, the Jaguars finished five out of the 12-team field.
The TPC network are courses operated by the PGA Tour.
Pena led the Jaguars and finished second out of the 67-player field.
At the University of Houston-Victoria Claud Jacobs Invitational at Victoria Country Club, the Jaguars finished third out of the 10-team field.
Pena led the Jaguars, shooting a two over par, 74 in round 1,a five under par, 67 in round 2, and a four over par, 76 in round 3 for a total score of one over par, 73.
This will be the first appearance at the Linda Lowry Invitational for the Jaguars.
“I’m feeling pretty solid; we’ve all been practicing as a group,” said sophomore computer science major Christian Ramirez. “We feel like our team chemistry is pretty good and I feel like we’re ready to do some good at that tournament.”
The Jaguars will have two more tournaments in April before the RRAC championship tournament. This year the RRAC championship tournament will take place at Golf Club of Texas in San Antonio, the home course for the Jags.
“I feel like we’ve all grown pretty familiar with that course,” Ramirez said, “so it will be a fun, nice advantage having it pretty much in our own backyard.”
The RRAC championship tournament was held at Victoria Country Club last year where the Jaguars finished third out of the nine teams in the field last season.
Pena performed the best by being the low shooter with scores of 76, 70 and 75. Pena also tied fifth out of the 41-player field.
The RRAC championship tournament is the final tourney for conference teams with the winners receiving an invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men’s National Championship at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois.
With only four golf teams in the RRAC, A&M-San Antonio gets an automatic invitation to the championship tournament.
“We’re just trying to keep the competitive juices flowing,” Cano said.
Visit https://scoreboard.clippd.com/home to keep up with the Jaguars’ upcoming tournaments.
