After a slow start to the 2016 season, the Florida men’s golf team found its rhythm and has been playing with confidence.
Following a fifth-place finish at the Carpet Capital Invitational in Dalton, Georgia, the Gators rebounded to finish in the top two of their final three events of the Fall season.
Thanks to the two team wins, the Gators go into the Spring season as the No. 3-ranked team in the country, trailing Vanderbilt and Illinois.
After finishing first at the Tavistock Collegiate in mid-October, the Gators began a break in between tournaments that spanned three and a half months. The team will finally return to action today, as it will travel fewer than two hours to Ponte Vedra for the Sea Best Invitational, an event the Gators won last season.
At that tournament, four Gators finished in the top five, and the team won the event by 23 strokes. After Sea Best, the team will host the SunTrust Gator Invitational at the Mark Bostick Golf Course and then travel to UNLV, Georgia Southern and Vanderbilt before competing at the SEC Championship tournament from April 21-23 in St. Simons Island, Georgia.
The team is full of talent, including a freshman who once played in the U.S. Open, as well as a sophomore with three individual tournament titles.
Andy Zhang, the only newcomer to the team, became the youngest person to ever participate in one of the golf world’s most prominent tournaments, the U.S. Open.
At the age of 14, Zhang competed with some of the best golfers in the world at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, California. Four years later, Zhang was ranked the No. 1-overall golf recruit in the nation by Golfweek.com. Now, with a few tournaments played and a top-10 finish at the Windon Memorial Classic, Zhang goes into the Spring season as a player to watch for the Gators.
Another guy to keep an eye on is First-Team All-American sophomore Sam Horsfield.
Horsfield, the 2015-16 SEC Freshman of the Year, is looking to improve his game after finishing outside of the top five in every tournament during the Fall. After a dominant freshman year during which he captured three individual tournament titles, eight top-five finishes and competed in every tournament, it was announced that he would be going pro at the end of the Spring season.
Coach J.C. Deacon, who is entering his third year as the Gators’ head coach, had high praise for the young Horsfield.
“It’s tough for all of us that Sam is turning pro,” Deacon said. “We’re gonna miss him as a friend and a teammate and a person. And obviously, it’ll be tough to replace those golf scores. He’s been such a great player. But at the same time, we’re all really excited for his future and what’s coming up.”
Last year, Horsfield won the Sea Best Invitational, the Southern Highlands Collegiate and the Mason Rudolph Championship, three tournaments the team is playing in again this year.
And both he and his teammates are hoping for repeat performances in 2017.
Contact Justin Ahlum at jahlum@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @justinn_case1.
Sam Horsfield hits a shot during Round 2 of the SunTrust Gator Invitational on Feb. 21, 2016, at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.
