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Gators men’s golf will tee up their spring season this Monday, Feb. 4 at Sea Best Invitational in a short trip away to TPC Sawgrass.
The Gators are quite familiar with the famous greens of TPC Sawgrass. They claimed the Sea Best title in 2016 and 2017. But they left the tournament off of their schedule in 2018.
The format is a 54-hole stroke play played within two days. The first 36 holes are played on the first day, while the last 18 are played on the second. The host course, Dye’s Valley, is a par-70 that stretches to 6,873 yards.
While the field contains various teams across the NCAA, one particular competitor that sticks out is No. 13 Arkansas, who is the host team for the 2019 NCAA Championship.
A look back at fall
Florida’s 2018 fall run was less than ideal. The Gators had a rough start at Carpet Capital Collegiate, placing 13th overall. They quickly came back with a fourth-place finish at Trinity Forest Invitational, and two individual top-tens with a T3 from sophomore John Axelsen and a T10 from senior Gordon Neale.
But the team ultimately failed to defend their title at Trinity Forest from the previous year. Consequently, the Gators’ Trinity Forest finish would mark their peak for the fall. They would place T6 at the Nike Collegiate Invitational and close out the season with a ninth-place finish at Tavistock Collegiate Invitational.
A bright spot? Axelsen earned himself a spot on the Arnold Palmer Cup watch list. He placed 20th on the International side.
Is improvement on the horizon?
For the Gators, the spring season means a few things. It means capitalizing on Axelsen’s fall success, where he led the team with a stroke average low of 71.00. Further development of freshman talents Aden Ye and Eugene Hong will be key. Each had standout performances in the fall, with top individual finishes at the two closing tournaments (Hong finished T15 at Nike Collegiate, while Ye finished T17 at Tavistock Collegiate).
Lastly, sending off Neale’s college career on a high note. He’ll need to build off of leading the team in 32 birdies in the fall campaign. Doing so could put him on track to erase the memory of a poor T123 individual finish at the 2018 NCAA Championship.
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Sea Best Invitational begins Monday, Feb. 4 through Tuesday, Feb. 5.
