Men’s golf started its spring season with a two-day tournament in San Marcos, Calif. on Feb. 5-6. Their overall performance at California State University San Marcos Fujikura Invite proved consistent but they eventually fell to the back of both the individual and team leaderboards. The Eagles finished 14th out of 16 teams at the invite, far behind the winning host CSUSM Cougars.

BUCK STARTS HERE

Junior Parker Buck, a transfer who spent his first two collegiate seasons on the golf team at Belmont University, had his best performance yet as an Eagle. Buck finished each of his first two rounds with 75 strokes before slipping a tiny bit with a 77 on round three. His performance still proved good enough to lead Biola and finish tied for 23rd among all individual golfers at the invite. Junior Kyle McAbee had the most dramatic improvement from one round to the next, bouncing back from an atrocious 83-stroke round two to shoot a 74 in the third round, moving up 11 spots on the leaderboard.

Not far behind McAbee, who finished 54th, came junior Austin Bishop at 58th. Bishop shot an underwhelming 236 total over his three rounds, just two strokes behind McAbee’s 234. Unlike his teammate, however, Bishop regressed by five strokes on day two, finishing his invite with an 81 in round three after a 76 in round two. Junior Tristan Ginkel and senior Samuel Shih rounded out Biola’s scorers. Ginkel came in a tie for 71st with a composite score of 242 while Shih finished 78th with a total score of 255.

STAYING PUT

The Eagles maintained their 14th-place position on the team leaderboard over both days of the invite, staying out of the cellar but failing to catch up to even 13-place finisher Tiffin University. Head coach Max Allen’s squad will hope to get back into the swing of things over the next few weeks so they can be prepared by the time they travel to Santa Clarita, Calif. for The Master’s University’s TMU Invite on Feb. 26.