After a week off, the UConn men’s golf team will play in the Ka’anapali Collegiate Invitational at the Royal Ka’anapali Course in Maui, Hawaii, which marks their last event of the fall season before wrapping up until the spring.
Connecticut will face off against some of the top teams in the country, including No. 2 Oklahoma, who has claimed victory the last two times this event was held and has won the invitational four times.
Oklahoma will bring a formidable squad that features the likes of junior Jase Summy and senior Drew Goodman. Summy has shot a round in the 60s 19 out of 70 times for his career and has four top-five finishes in 22 events, including tying for the win his freshman year. Goodman has also been excellent, with a best all-time round score of 63 and 24 top-20 finishes in his career.
No. 5 LSU also promises a challenge, fielding golfers such as Missouri transfer Alfons Bondesson and freshman top 50 recruit Connor Cassano. Bondesson hails from Vallda, Sweden and finished eighth at the 2023 SEC championships.
In addition to the vaunted Oklahoma and LSU, seven other teams ranked in the top 100 will play in the invitational, including No. 27 Georgia, No. 34 Colorado, No. 42 TCU, No. 46 Kansas, No. 65 Indiana, No. 70 San Jose State and No. 95 Boise State. The field is rounded out by UConn, ETSU, Gonzaga, Louisiana Tech, CSUN, North Florida, Sacramento State, UC Irvine, Southern Illinois, Liberty and Wyoming.
The Huskies are coming off a great outing at the Xavier Invitational, having scored a 861 overall and finishing in a tie for third place with Austin Peay. Three UConn golfers ended up in the top 10 for individual scores, including junior Connor Goode, a Glastonbury native, who shot a two-over par 212 and finished fourth in the standings.
Senior Ray Dennehy fired two eagles on his way to finishing seventh overall with a score of 215, while sophomore Bradley Sawka secured his first top-10 spot of the season with a 216. He did best in the second round, carding a 67 for his lowest score of the fall so far. Goode, Dennehy, and Sawka will all look to replicate their excellent showings in Hawaii this weekend. Other Connecticut golfers expected to contribute are seniors Eric Boulger and Vikram Konanki.
This invitational’s venue of the Royal Ka’anapali Course was built in 1962 by famous golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Sr., who designed more than 500 courses in his career. It is a 6,700-yard, par-71 course which starts at sea level and ends up in the foothills of West Maui Mountain. Notable challenges include the par-5 first hole that stretches 550 yards and the par-4 18th, which golfing great Arnold Palmer once hailed as one of the toughest finishing holes he’d ever played.