GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The overall trend for the field at the 2023 ODAC Championship was that each of the three rounds played tougher than the prior round based on team scoring; but the Bridgewater College men's golf team posted five scores in the 70s to match its low round (309) and jumped a spot on the final day.
 
The Eagles were chasing their playing partners from Shenandoah for two days and were still trailing by nine strokes on the front nine Tuesday after they carded five double bogeys and a triple early in the day. But Hayden Hawes and Logan Douthat both started the back nine with a pair of birdies, and that ignited a strong finish that included 10 total team birdies coming in.
 
"All week we focused on managing the course and hitting to the center of the greens," said head coach John Rogers. "Making a lot of pars on a course like this can make a team competitive, but today we did not have anything to lose and decided to play more aggressively on many of the holes. I think we made more birdies today than the other two rounds combined, and it was a fun way for the guys to finish up." Rogers pointed out that only two of the 11 teams in the conference moved up from their first-round position, so it was satisfying that Bridgewater erased a large deficit on the last few holes to make a jump.
 
Rogers also noted how strange scoring can be in the game of golf -- freshman Jack Thome spent the first two rounds trying to tweak his swing and was lagging behind his teammates in scoring; but during the final round he birdied three of the last five holes to shoot 75 and lead the team for the day. He played the closing nine at even par and finished with the second lowest round of his young collegiate career.
 
Hayden Hawes also played the back nine at even par and he came in with a 77. The junior struggled with his putting early in the tournament, but dropped two birdie putts over 35-feet on Tuesday to help the team finish on a high note. 
 
Brandon Washburn concluded his first appearance in the ODAC Championship with his lowest round of the week (78). He was +3 through four holes, despite a birdie, but played the remaining fourteen holes at just +3. Though he putted better as the tournament progressed, he said he also missed a couple three-foot birdie putts on the slick greens at Forest Oaks (Greensboro, NC). The freshman had clutch par saves on #16 and #17 to keep the team momentum on track.
 
Sophomore Logan Douthat is as likely as anyone on the Bridgewater squad to make birdies, but he also has a tendency to make large numbers on occasion. On Tuesday he had an eight-hole stretch at -1 that was sandwiched between a double and a triple bogey. Rogers pointed out that Douthat will be "dangerous" when he learns to make the birdies without dropping multiple strokes on the tougher holes. Nonetheless, the Giles High School product came in with a 79 to round out the team score.
 
Max Bondurant, the Eagles' leading scorer, had an uncharacteristic stretch of holes in the middle of the round -- he played holes #5 through #10 at nine over par. But he maintained composure and played the final five holes at -2 to salvage a 79. His 231 total for the week was good enough to keep him in the top half of the field (27th / 60).
 
Guilford (#5 in the nation) went coast to coast to win the championship, and their own Sam Davidson posted three rounds in the 60s (-11) to win the individual title.
 
The 8th-place finish for Bridgewater denoted mixed results for the program -- it was their lowest finish in the ODAC since the conference went to a 54-hole tournament in 2007, but it was also their sixth-best team score in 16 seasons. "We are at a strange juncture in the conference," said Rogers. "Last year we broke the program record for the championship and finished seventh. We played decently this year and finished eighth. The ODAC is so good and so deep right now and we are going to have to take these talented young players and make a big move forward in the coming years." He added that it was great to be gaining experience with a starting lineup that featured no seniors and just one upperclassman.
 
The Eagles have completed their 2022-2023 season and look forward to returning to action in September.