The UConn men’s golf team finished a strong regular season with many dominant performances. The program’s most recent outing was at the Rutherford Invitational, where the team finished second in a field of 14.
The Huskies were led by Jimmy Paradise and Tommy Dallahan, who both put together top-10 performances. Paradise got off to a quick start for Connecticut, shooting an excellent 73 in the first round, including five birdies. Dallahan also got off to a hot start, finishing even par for the day, which was all the more impressive considering the degree of difficulty of the Penn State Blue Course.
As a unit, the Huskies finished eight over par on the first day, a much higher total than they are accustomed to. However, they still found themselves in a battle for first place with Penn State all weekend long. Connecticut struggled to get it going on Saturday, as they finished a whopping 17 over par. Despite that, they put the first two rough days behind them and strung together an excellent Sunday. Dallahan led the way for UConn, finishing an excellent two under par on the day. The senior performed so well this weekend that he tied for second in a field of 65. Not far behind him were Bradley Swaka and Paradise, who both finished three strokes behind him to cap off a successful weekend.
The Huskies finished in second place as a unit, 10 strokes behind the Nittany Lions. This was an encouraging performance, considering the regular season is over, and the team will compete in the Big East Championship.
Coming into this tournament, Connecticut has struggled to capitalize on the par fours, as statistically speaking, they perform the worst on these holes. However, UConn is not the only school that has run into trouble here. By far, hole No. 18, a long 475-yard par four, threw the field for a loop. In fact, no one finished below par on this hole, with over half of the golfers finishing with a bogey or worse. Another long par four that seemed to be giving the golfers problems was hole seven, which again saw nearly everyone finish over par. Despite these challenging holes, there were opportunities for the golfers to improve their scores. Hole nine saw 14 eagles all weekend long, yet tournament leaders, Penn State, still finished six over par.
This was an encouraging performance for the Huskies, with the program leaders Dallahan and Paradise putting together solid performances on the links. Even then, no golfer had a “bad performance,” with all of them finishing near each other on the scorecard. This outing is a nice way to finish off a solid year for the Huskies, which saw them finish in third place three times and many different finishes near the top of the podium. The program will next suit up in the Big East Championship on April 27-29, where they will look to improve upon last year’s disappointing ninth-place finish. With this latest performance and the Huskies winning Big East match play earlier this year, Connecticut is in the best position possible to bring back a Big East championship to Storrs, CT.