Junior Bryson Richards picked up his first win of the season this past weekend at the Hartford/Wintonbury Tournament. PHOTO CREDIT: gorhody.com
After winning two straight tournaments by a combined 27 strokes, the University of Rhode Island Golf team were riding a wave of momentum heading into the Hartford/Wintonbury Hills Invitational this past weekend.
A small field of only five other schools along with a short course of only 6711 yards, gave URI all the advantages they would need to come out with another first place finish. However, the Rams failed to overcome an eight-shot lead from Fairfield on Day 1 and finished second in the tournament.
The second-place finish left Head Coach Gregg Burke and his team far from satisfied with how they did.
“We failed to win a tournament that we should have won by a great number of strokes,” Burke said.
Burke attributed his high expectations to the fact that the Rams missed an opportunity to win the tournament.
“It’s a golf course we normally believe we should dominate and also a field that we should have dominated,” Burke said. “We didn’t do it, we learned a lot about ourselves, we saw a lot of distractions and hopefully this will be a signal that we need to work harder to win the [Atlantic 10].”
Although URI was unable to gather a team win this past weekend, junior Bryson Richards captured first place honors as an individual. Richards finished with 2-under par on the weekend, the only player to shoot under par for the tournament.
Heading into the final day of the tournament, Richards was sitting in eighth place at 3-over, but shot a 65 to climb up the leaderboard and move into first place.
“[I] tried not to get too frustrated,” Richards said. “I hit a lot of good shots in the first round. I just wasn’t scoring well.
“I knew in order to get a little momentum early I had to start with a couple of birdies, so I just tried to get off to a hot start and [I] was able to do that,” Richards said.
So far this season, the Rams have relied heavily on their top three golfers — Richards, Jordan Brajcich and Brandon Gillis. Burke has enjoyed the way the trio has played this season, but says they will need a little more depth to solidify themselves as an A-10 title contender.
“Our first three are terrific,” Burke said. “We have had three-straight A-10 Players of the Week and they have all been different players. Right now, we are a three man team, desperately searching for a fourth scorer.”
The search for that key fourth scorer is a timed mission. Brajcich and Gillis will be graduating at the end of the season, so the time to fill that future hole becomes less and less every day.
With their current stretch of success, URI enters every weekend with the utmost confidence. However, the Rams are living and playing in the present, taking every competition one at a time.
“I think you always go in expecting to win, that’s always a goal of ours,” Richards said. “But we still have to realize that we have to play well. We can’t just show up.”
The Rams are back in action this coming weekend at The Abarta Coca-Cola Collegiate Invitational, in Hellertown, PA, their final tournament before the A-10 Championship.