JACKSON, Tenn. – With a three-round team score of 910 (318, 300, 292), Union men’s golf finished only behind the hosts at the Shorter University Invitational, a 12-team event held Monday and Tuesday at Barnsley Resort in Rome, Ga.
The runner-up finish is Union’s fourth top-three placement in its seven events of the 2023-24 campaign.
Led by graduate Daniel Maybee’s +9, all six Bulldog competitors finished in the top 21 of the 70-man field. Union’s best individual round was Maybee’s third, in which the CBU transfer shot one-under on the par-72 course.
Trace Robinson, who tied for tenth just one stroke behind Maybee, led the field in par-five play with an average score of 4.42 (-7 overall).
The story of the event for Union was marked improvement between rounds. Maybee, Robinson, JJ Zimmer (T12, +12), Gray Campbell (T15, +16), and Kip Patterson (T15) all fired their poorest scores of the tournament in the first 18 holes but whittled down their counts as play went on. After ending round one in seventh place, the Bulldogs used a round-best score of 300 (+12) in the second session to climb into second place. Thanks to the team’s Tuesday score of 292 (+4) – the day’s second-lowest round and the second-best in the tournament – Union held its spot through the finish.
Sophomore Will Brown, competing in his first event of the season, carded a career-low 73 in round one and finished +18.
As a team, Union led the event in both total birdies (41) and eagles (3), sunk by Maybee, Zimmer, and Patterson.
One more GSC team – West Georgia – competed in the event, finishing 14 strokes behind Union in third place. Shorter sophomore Blake Henriques won the tournament with a three-stroke margin at four-under.
Only one event remains for the Bulldogs before the GSC Championships. Union will travel to Lenior City, Tenn., for a tournament at Lincoln Memorial University on Mar. 25 and 26.
