After trailing by 12 shots, the No. 3 Gators had an unexpected chance to win Tuesday thanks to the outstanding performance of their senior leader.
Bank Vongvanij won the individual title after firing a 4-under 68 in the final round at the Isleworth Collegiate Invitational, leading the UF men’s golf team to a third-place finish. The senior made six birdies on a comeback run from five shots back and finished with a total score of 212 (74-70-68, -4).
“I think Bank’s turning the page a little bit,” coach Buddy Alexander said. “He’s just become a different player.”
Vongvanij had five top-10 finishes last season but was inconsistent at times. He has finished in the top five of each tournament this season, including a second-place finish at the Olympia Fields Invitational.
“As long as he keeps hitting those fairways, he’s going to be hard to beat,” Alexander said.
Unfortunately for the rest of the Gators, missing the fairway was a frequent occurrence Tuesday.
Three UF golfers shot 80 or higher on the final 18 — effectively canceling the under-par gems shot by Vongvanij and sophomore Phillip Choi.
Choi fired five birdies Tuesday en route to a 2-under 70 and an eighth-place overall finish at 220 (78-72-70, +4). He strung together birdies at the par-5 seventh and the challenging 465-yard, par-4 eighth.
Choi was the only UF golfer without a double bogey on his scorecard at the 7,544-yard Isleworth Golf and Country Club on Tuesday.
“I don’t care how hard a golf course is, you still can’t give [shots] away two and three at a time,” Alexander said. “That’s an area we’ll work hard to correct. When you look back in retrospect, we actually could have won this golf tournament today.”
However, scoring proved difficult for everyone in the final round, and the Gators’ 11-over score was third-best among all teams and two strokes better than eventual winner Alabama.
UF climbed two spots to finish third behind the Crimson Tide and LSU.
The chance to win was there — UF simply needed average rounds from two other golfers, Alexander said.
But consistent sophomore Tyler McCumber started rough with bogeys at the second and fifth holes. Trying to push the pace and get back in the red, McCumber faltered with consecutive double bogeys at eight and nine.
An 8-over-par 80 on Tuesday was his first tournament round in the 80s since March and brought his total to 229 (76-73-80, +13), good for 37th individually.
Tommy Mou and Michael Furci both carded 9-over rounds of 81, finishing tied for 51st and 57th, respectively.
“We were 6-under for two guys and 17-over for the other two,” Alexander said. “That’s just too big a discrepancy. I’m not happy with that. There’s some things we can do to help correct that.”
