The University of Rhode Island men’s golf team had been missing their top player, fifth-year Bryson Richards, for the past two tournaments due to injury. This week, Richards made his return in a big way at the Sacred Heart Classic in Milford, Connecticut.
Richards won the individual portion of the tournament, finishing at a score of three-under par. This was Richards’ fourth win of his career, and his first of the year.
“Those two events were the first two events I’ve missed since I got here in 2019 so that was hard,” Richards said. “I had a great week of prep and training and was lucky enough to play, and it was a great outcome.”
He also helped lead the team to a second place finish with a score of six-over par, only finishing behind Sacred Heart University, who finished one-over par. Along with Richards, the team got top five finishes from first-year Tony Liu and fourth-year Geronimo Narizzano. URI Head Coach Gregg Burke talked about the impact Richards has on the team, not only with the scores he puts up, but also how it helps the mindset of the other members.
“Bryson gives guys confidence that there’s going to be a really good number up there every time,” Burke said. “It allows them to play their own game.”
After all three days of the tournament, Richards found himself sitting in the top five of the individual leaderboard. He shot one-over in his first round back from injury, which had him at a tie for fourth along with Liu. He improved upon this score on day two, as he shot one-under and was sitting in a tie for third, just three shots back of the lead. Despite these results, Richards spoke about the little bit of rust that he had to shake off over the first two days after the time off.
“I was a little bit more nervy and playing a little more tentative than I normally do the first two rounds,” Richards said. “But, come the final round that went away.”
The final day of the tournament was a clinic from both Richards and the Rams as a team. Richards had a stretch on day three where he shot six-under over the span of 12 holes. This surge catapulted him to the top of the leaderboard and he didn’t give up his lead from there, finishing one shot ahead of second-place finisher Marcus Lim from Sacred Heart. Richards talked about the mindset he had throughout the final round, both about his thoughts when he gets into a groove like he was in and how it felt competing down the stretch with Lim.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve made seven or eight birdies or you haven’t made any at all, you have to tell yourself that you’re even par,” Richards said. “Some of my decisions were maybe a little bit different based on what he [Lim] was doing, but for the most part I just tried to play the course the way I did the first two days.”
Richards was not the only member of the team to impress on the final day. Liu shot four-under on Tuesday, which was the best round by any player in the field. This resulted in a finish at one-under and tied third for the tournament, only two shots off of the lead. This was Liu’s best finish in his young career at the University of Rhode Island.
Narizzano also had his best finish of the year, finishing at five-over and in a tie for fifth. Narizzano found himself in the top ten after day one when he shot two-over. However, his best round of the week came on day two when he shot two-under and was sitting in a tie for third, three shots back of the lead heading to the final day. The final round was a bit of a struggle for Narizzano as he shot five-over, but the top five finish was still very encouraging for Burke and the team.
“Geronimo had a terrific tournament,” Burke said. “He made a triple bogey on the 53rd hole of a 54 hole tournament and was still able to finish in fifth.”
As for the rest of the team, first-year Josiah Tong improved on his seven-over round on day one with back to back rounds of two-over to finish in 14th place. Second year Aidan O’Donovan struggled mightily in the first two rounds, shooting eight-over and nine-over, respectively. However, he improved greatly on these scores with a round of one-under on Tuesday and finished in a tie for 24th for the tournament.
Throughout the whole tournament, the Rams saw themselves in second place behind Sacred Heart. Led by three under par rounds on Tuesday, they gave Sacred Heart a run on the final day. They went into the round trailing by 15 strokes, and ended up closing that gap to five as they shot ten strokes better than any other team in the field. It was a two team race throughout, as the next best team finished at 38-over par, 32 shots behind the Rams. Burke expressed disappointment in the fact they were not able to get the win, but made it clear that the path to victory was there for the team.
“We’re obviously very very disappointed that we lost,” Burke said. “We were better than anybody in the field in the second and third round, we just did not play well in the first round.”
Looking ahead, the Rams have their final tournament of the fall season at the Nassau Intercollegiate in Glen Cove, NY on Monday and Tuesday. Burke is very excited to make the trip here and is going in with high expectations.
“We’ll be playing on just a spectacular golf course with greens as good as we’ve ever played on,” Burke said. “If we play like we did on Tuesday, we’ll win the tournament.”
With Richards back leading the way and coming off a win, the men’s golf team will look to carry this momentum as a team into next week and contend once again in Glen Cove.