Men’s golf: Northwestern finishes 12th in The Prestige

While Evanstonians wadd through two-and-a-half feet of snow, Northwestern’s men’s golf took to PGA West in La Quinta, California for the 21st The Prestige golf tournament. As the tournament’s website points out, “the Coachella Valley attracts over 14 million tourists” annually. However, there was no Coachella this year, and ABC’s Bachelorette season, which was filmed at the La Quinta Resort that includes PGA West, was a disaster. But we still have golf.

NU placed 12th out of 24 teams with an overall score of 22-over par while the other Wildcats from Arizona (ranked 11th nationally) split the title with North Carolina. Both top teams finished 4-under par, one stroke over third-place Pepperdine. Six top-15 teams played in the event, per the tournament website.

With a 7-over round on Monday and a 3-over round on Tuesday, the ‘Cats struggled to a 12-over on Wednesday. However, the course played considerably tougher during the final round as only two teams shot under par on the day.

Northwestern was quite consistent across the board as three players — David Nyfjall, Varun Chopra, and James Imai — the tournament at 6-over, placing all three of them tied for 44th with six other players in the individual competition. In a tournament in which only the top four scores counted towards the team total, Christopher Zhang pulled in a 7-over as the fourth score.

Trevor Werbylo from Arizona shared the individual title with TCU’s Jacob Skov Olesen and Texas Tech sophomore Ludvig Aberg. All three of them finished 4-under par.

Northwestern’s next escapes the cold at the Spartan Collegiate, on Sea Island, Georgia, on March 8-9.

Player Scores

David Nyfjall: 75, 72, 72; 219

James Imai: 73, 70, 76; 219

Varun Chopra: 72, 74, 73; 219

Christopher Zhang: 74, 71, 75; 220

Eric McIntosh: 72, 74, 78; 224