Northwestern men’s golf recorded its best performance of the season in the Windon Memorial Classic at its home, Onwentsia Club, on Monday and Tuesday.
The Wildcats were one of 16 teams in the event and finished fourth. Kansas took home the team championship with a combined score of 4-under, while UC Davis’ Zhenxian Zhang, fueled by a final-round 64, and Cal Poly’s Frederick Egnatios led the individual leaderboard with scores of 8-under.
NU opened the week with back-to-back cumulative scores of 283
before closing with a 1-under 279 to finish five strokes over for the tournament. Kansas, Washington and Notre Dame all finished under par to make up the top three.
Kuan Zhou led the way for the ‘Cats with an opening-round 71 before carding a 68 and then 66. His cumulative score of 5-under placed him third on the individual leaderboard. Zhuo had two eagles and nine birdies but was held back by eight bogeys, including six in his first round. It was the first-year’s career-best finish, and he appears to be a building block for the Northwestern program.
Fellow first-year Carter Gaede had a similarly impressive performance, finishing the tournament 1-over par and 21st on the individual leaderboard. Gaede tied Zhou’s best round of 66, shooting 4-under in his first round before shooting scores of 70 and 75. Gaede had four birdies and an eagle in a near-perfect round one, while a triple bogey in round two on the 17th hole dimmed what would have been an otherwise breakout week.
Rowan Sullivan was the third-best Wildcat finisher. Sullivan finished the tournament in 40th place at 4-over par, but that score doesn’t reflect how well he played. Sullivan carded four birdies in each of the three rounds, totaling a team-high 12. He played aggressively all week long and, excluding the 12th hole of round one, would have finished 3-under par and well within the top ten. However, that’s not how golf works. The 11 shots he took to finish the par-4 12th severely hampered his tournament and put him seven strokes over on just one hole. Sullivan carded rounds of 74, 68 and 72.
Jeremy Chen and Monty Holcombe rounded out the Wildcat starting lineup. Chen shot consistent rounds of 73, 72 and 71 to finish T-48th and 6-over par, and Holcombe had the bogey-bug en route to shooting rounds of 74, 74 and 72 to finish T-64th at 10-over par. The two had a combined 33 bogeys or worse in a forgettable week.
Northwestern also sent four individuals to compete at the tournament. Isaac Lee tied Gaede in 21st place with a combined score of 1-over par, thanks in part to a final-round 69. Carl Moller, Mark Gazi and Archie Finnie also competed as individuals, but none finished inside the top-50 of the individual leaderboard.
Northwestern’s next tee time is in the Kemper Lakes Intercollegiate on Oct. 5 and Oct. 6 at the Kemper Lakes Golf Club in Lake County, Illinois. NU will compete in the field of 13 teams mainly consisting of nearby teams like Illinois State University and Loyola University Chicago.
