Men's Golf | April 1

SAN FRANCISCO - The Northern Illinois University men's golf team was tested this week against one of the top tournament fields in college golf this week at The Goodwin, hosted by Stanford at TPC Harding Park, finishing 23rd.

The tournament field included seven teams in the top-40 of the GolfStat rankings, including #8 Stanford, #11 Georgia Tech and #13 Oklahoma who finished third, second and first respectively. The course also providing a daunting task, having hosted the 2020 PGA Championship.

"It was set up with the same hole locations as the 2020 PGA Championship, and the course was probably the most difficult, yet fair setup that we've faced this year," said head coach John Carlson. "It's always good to test yourself against one of the best collegiate fields of the year. The most positive takeaway for us was that all five guys had really good starts to each round and were competing to be one of the top four scorers, which says a lot about our team."

Senior Zach Place (Roselle, Ill./Lake Park) was NIU's top finisher, finishing in a tie for 16th with a 54-hole score of even par 210. Place opened the tournament Thursday with a two-over par 72. On Friday, the senior had five birdies in his second round and finished with a one-under par 69 to move 21 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for 38th at one-over.

Place had another round of 69 on Saturday to finish at even par for the tournament. He birdied the fourth and ninth holes to finish the front nine at one under in his final round. After a bogey at the 11th, Place made par on six of the last seven holes with a birdie at 16 to finish with his second consecutive round under par.

"Zach proved this weekend that his game can stand up to a major championship test," Carlson said. "His short game was in good form this weekend, which allowed him to take advantage of his good shots and make birdies. He was right there with some of the top golfers in the country, so that should give him a lot of momentum as he moves through the rest of the schedule this spring."

NIU's best team score of the weekend came in Friday's second round. Led by Place's 69, the Huskies also saw Campbell Wolf (Mechanicsburg, Pa./ETSU) card his best round of the event with a two-over par 72. Wolf improved by four strokes over his opening round 76. Ian Bruchhauser (Temecula, Calif./Great Oak), Ben Sluzas (Lockport, Ill./Lockport) and Tommy Dunsire (Naperville, Ill./Naperville Central) each had rounds of three-over 73 to round out NIU's team score of seven-over 287. Dunsire followed up his 73 with a one-over 71 on Saturday, the second-lowest score for an NIU golfer on the weekend.

The Huskies had a team score of 289 on Saturday, finishing the tournament in 23rd place at 28-over par and two strokes ahead on UC Davis. NIU was two strokes behind #33 Little Rock, Lipscomb and Washington State for 20th place.

NIU's next tournament is the Mason Rudolph Championship, hosted by Vanderbilt at the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn. April 10-12.

—NIU—