It’s hard to script a better start to the season than the way the UConn men’s golf team did. The Huskies took Bear Links Country Club by storm for two days, beating out the entire Big East conference, including the Seton Hall Pirates, in the championship match.
As the tournament’s name indicates, this was a Big East Match Play tournament. This competition style means that one player from each program plays against a randomly selected player from another team to win the most holes possible. Whoever comes out ahead wins their head-to-head matchup and gives their team a point in the team matchup. This is not the same as stroke play, where the objective is to shoot the overall lowest score. Connecticut’s weekend started off with them pitted against Butler. Similar to the men’s basketball team, the UConn golf team demolished the Bulldogs 6-1-0. After that, the Huskies faced a tall task in No. 1 seed Creighton and shined again, taking that matchup 4-1-2. Finally, in the championship round, UConn clashed with Seton Hall and pulled off an impressive 4-2-1 victory.
Jimmy Paradise led the way for the Huskies all weekend long, going 3-0-0 after battling an injury last fall. Alex Heard matched Paradise’s performance with a clean sweep of the competition. Heard’s outing is encouraging for the program, considering he is only a freshman. The first-year led all UConn golfers with 15 total birdies for the two-day event, only two shy of tying tournament leader Peicheng Chen of St. John’s. Tommy Dallahan also matched his teammate’s undefeated weekend, although he finished on level terms with Creighton’s Grant Feldman in Connecticut’s semifinal match. Other notable performances for the program came from Eric Boulger and Connor Goode, who each won a pair of matchups for the Huskies.
If you go hole by hole, there was a common trend among the Husky golfers and the rest of the competition. The par four holes gave the whole field trouble, as everyone finished above par in that respect. Hole No. 13 in particular threw everyone for a loop. While the 482-yard par four seemed straightforward, it was anything but. Hole No. 13 saw the least number of birdies this weekend, along with the most bogeys of any hole. There were also 15 double bogeys. Four of the athletes finished it three or more strokes over par.
This was a solid start to kick off the Huskies’ 2024 campaign. They will look to improve upon last year’s disappointing in-conference tournament finish, where they placed ninth out of the ten Big East teams competing. UConn will return to action this weekend for the Palmas Del Mar Intercollegiate in Humacao, Puerto Rico. Connecticut will be one of 15 programs competing.