GREENSBORO, N.C. -- On Tuesday, the Bridgewater College men's golf team wrapped up its fall season in the final round of the O'Briant-Jensen Memorial. Playing among many of the elite teams of D3 golf, the Eagles finished in 16th place.
 
On the challenging Pete Dye course, The Cardinal, sophomore Max Bondurant was the only Eagle to break 80 in the final round. Despite dropping three strokes on the challenging final two holes of the day, Bondurant turned in a 79 while carding three birdies. 
 
Freshman Andrew Baugher concluded a solid first appearance in the starting lineup and was tied for the team low score in the tournament (82+80=162). When he bogeyed his 8th and 9th holes (#17 and #18) he made the turn at +7 but rallied coming in, playing the final nine at just two strokes over par. Head coach John Rogers commented that he was pleased with Baugher's performance considering it is one of the most demanding tournaments the Eagles play.
 
In the first round on Monday Jacob Sears uncharacteristically missed some short putts but he got a few of them to fall on Tuesday and he was able to shave four strokes from his total. A highlight was making par on the tough fifth hole after playing from the creek that winds through many of the holes at the Pete Dye course. Sears concluded his final round with an 81.
 
Golf showed its fickle nature when the top two scorers from Monday fell back to the bottom of the pack for the Eagles on Tuesday. Junior Hayden Hawes said he got on the bogey train in the middle of the round and could not find his way out of the rut. He was +1 through five holes but then had a stretch of eight bogeys followed by a triple bogey in the middle of the round. Hawes came in with a total of 84.
 
Junior Nate Winebarger had the low round for the Eagles Monday but had a hard time avoiding large numbers in the final round. He had seven holes higher than bogey on his way to shooting an 89. Winebarger said he was looking forward to tightening up his ball flight patterns during the off season. 
 
In the fall season, the Eagles had a tendency to finish very near their seeding in each tournament and were likely to make a move on the leaderboard in the final round, but at the O'Briant-Jensen they ended up falling back a pair of spots.

"While we did not get the results we were looking for this week," said Rogers, "It's important to play in tournaments like this to see what the elite teams can do on a tough course and how they do it, somethings that stood out to me-- we need to take better advantage of the par 5's which we played well over par this week; we need to develop a greater variety of shots including things like cuts on demand and punch shots; and we need to tighten up our course management to avoid big numbers. We are still a very young team and the key to moving forward is developing these skills." 
 
At one time or another in the fall season nine Eagles made the starting lineup for Bridgewater, including a trio of freshmen and three sophomores. Rogers said he was pleased with the depth of the team and that the team's next step would be to translate talent into better scoring.
 
CNU, ranked No. 7 nationally, ran away with the tournament and three other top-10 teams, Hampden-Sydney's Rubino shot impressive scores of 68 and 65 to win the individual title by three strokes.
 
The Eagles will reopen their season in mid February with their first tournament being played during their annual spring trip.