AU men’s golf opens play at GSU’s Bash in the Boro

AU’s Alex van Wyk, a business major from South Africa, is coming off a ninth-place finish at the Alabama-Birmingham tournament. (staff photo)

By Brian Mitchell |
Sports writer

The Augusta University men’s golf team opens play in Georgia Southern’s Bash in the Boro golf tournament today (Monday, Oct. 19).

This tournament replaces the Mountaineer Invitational in West Virginia. That tournament was cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The 54-hole event in Statesboro will include AU, Georgia Southern, Appalachian State, Francis Marion, Troy, Western Kentucky and Wofford.

The teams will play 36 holes today and 18 holes on Tuesday, Oct. 20.

“The goal for our team is to execute our game plan to the best of our ability,” said AU Coach Jack O’Keefe. “We will prepare well during the practice round to develop a game plan for each player. It is then up to each player to execute their own game plan as well as they can.”

Alex van Wyk was the leader for the Jaguars in their first event of the season at the Graeme McDowell Invitational in Birmingham, Ala., last month. He finished tied for ninth and shot 68 in the final round to finish at 1 under par for the tournament.

Joining him on the AU squad playing at Statesboro are his brother Ben van Wyk, Hampus Wijkstrom, Dan Sheehan, Brock Hoover, Jack Vajda, Dawson Booth and Wilhelm Berg von Linda.

Alex Van Wyk and the rest of the Jaguars are looking to go into the tournament with a more aggressive mindset. The Jaguars have improved a lot since the last tournament. There is one player in particular that has stood out in particular, and that is Dawson Booth.

“Our most improved guy is probably Dawson Booth,” O’Keefe said. “He played really well in round three of qualifying with a 67. He has a lot more confidence than his first tournament a few weeks ago.”

The tournament is being play at the Georgia Southern Golf Course, and O’Keefe said the Jaguars know the host team will be highly competitive.

“Georgia Southern is our biggest challenge in the tournament as they have home-course advantage,” he said. “The keys are to play the par 5s and par 3s well. We have a team that can make a lot of birdies, and that will be one of our goals. Georgia Southern will be tough to beat on their home course, but we are up to the challenge and look forward to competing this week”.

Georgia Southern finished second in the Graeme McDowell Invitational at UAB, while AU finished seventh.

Here is the live leaderboard for the tournament: Bash in the Boro Live Scoring.

This will be Augusta’s last scheduled tournament of the fall season. The Jaguars hope to have a relatively full schedule in the spring.

Contact Brian Mitchell at BRMITCHELL2@augusta.edu.