The wind picked up as the dark clouds rolled in and began to rain on the golf course in Pismo Beach on Thursday. The Biola men’s golf team competed in the Lamkin Grip Cal Poly Challenge against a field of all Division I schools, but Biola held its own.

Rain affects tournament performance

Despite the stiff competition and difficult weather conditions the first day, Biola finished seventh as a team with a combined score of 323 on Thursday, and 314 on Friday.
The whole team was clearly affected by the rainy weather on Thursday, except for junior John Graham, who evidently plays better in the rain. Graham was one of two players to finish in the top 20 for Biola along with sophomore Joshua Mathis. Both Graham and Mathis tied for 16th place in the tournament.

Graham shot 73 the first day in the rain and 79 the next day, while Mathis struggled the first day and shot 80, followed by an impressive 72 on Friday. Sophomore Kenny Gibo finished with the next lowest score for Biola with a 166 total for the two days. Rounding out the team was sophomore Conner Penfold and senior Tim Goodfriend.

“This last tournament was a good reminder to our team that we play golf to glorify God and if we aren’t doing that we are no different than any other school,” Graham said.

Biola setting high goals for regionals

Cal Poly, the host of the tournament, won first place. This was actually Biola’s last tournament before regionals in mid April, which will be Biola’s final attempt to qualify for nationals. In order to qualify, Biola must place first at regionals, an extremely difficult task considering they are in one of the toughest regions. But Graham and Mathis are working hard to lead their team to a nationals appearance.

“We’ve had a tough spring, we just can’t seem to put together three solid rounds in a tournament. I’m confident that we will be ready for regionals though,” Mathis said.
With this year winding down, Coach Hank Woodrome is looking to next year’s recruits to continue to build the young Biola men’s golf team. With promising freshmen coming into the program, next year could be the golf team’s best year yet. For now though, the focus is on preparing for regionals, which takes place on April 18 and 19.