The University of Rhode Island men’s golf team won both the Ledgemont Match Play and Metropolitan Collegiate in the span of four days to close out their fall season this week.
Rhode Island got their week started by traveling to Seekonk, Massachusetts on Saturday for a one-day match play tournament. The Rams defeated Merrimack University 5.5-2.5 in their morning semifinal match to advance to the championship against the College of the Holy Cross.
Similarly to their morning match, the Rams took control of the championship as they lost just one of the eight matchups for a 6.5-1.5 victory and their third title of the fall season. Over the course of the day, third-year Aidan O’Donovan, second-year Owen Rooney, second-year Tony Liu and second-year Seb Carlsson all went 2-0 in their matches.
“The most important thing of the whole thing was that I got to play eight guys, so guys that didn’t normally get the chance to get tournaments played did,” URI Head Coach Gregg Burke said. “The idea was to go and see how much we’ve progressed over the semester by playing a very hard golf course.”
URI was back in action just two days later at the Metropolitan Collegiate in Montclair, New Jersey. They maintained the momentum from their win on Saturday by jumping out to a 13-shot lead over the rest of the field with a team score of six-over in round one.
“I think we were ultra-prepared as the guys knew it was their last tournament of the year,” Burke said. “They knew they wanted to come in here and make a statement.”
O’Donovan shot the only under-par round in the entire field on Monday with a score of three-under. He made a triple bogey on the seventh hole, but caught fire with five birdies in the span of six holes on the back nine. Overall, he made seven birdies over the course of the round and took a three-shot individual lead.
“Since the middle of the summer, [O’Donovan] has conducted himself in a way that makes him a true Rhody golfer,” Burke said. “He’s become everything that we hoped he would.”
Coming off his top-five finish at the Nassau Intercollegiate on Oct. 21-22, first-year Luke Stennett once again found himself in the thick of the action on day one. He was tied for second, three shots behind the lead held by O’Donovan, after a steady round of even that included 14 pars on the scorecard.
Led by O’Donovan and Stennett, Rhode Island players were jumbled at the top of the leaderboard following day one with four sitting inside the top 10. Despite the large lead, Burke said that their goal stayed the same heading into the final round.
“The big lead is nice, you feel good when you win, but it wasn’t our purpose in coming here,” Burke said. “We came here to really see how far we progressed and see where we are and know what we have to work on moving forward.”
After shooting nine-over with no birdies in the opening round, second-year Josiah Tong responded with the best round in the field, finishing with a score of one-under on Tuesday to move up 26 spots for a top-10 finish. Liu also catapulted 13 spots up the leaderboard to finish inside the top-five with a second round of one-over.
O’Donovan was clinging to a two-shot lead heading into the 15th hole, but went three-over on his next two holes to fall one behind the pace. Ultimately, he was unable to gain those shots back on the final two holes and finished runner-up at three-over, marking his third top-10 finish of the year.
“[O’Donovan] is someone I believe is going to win a tournament and once he does, he’s going to win more than one,” Burke said. “Aidan is a danger to win any tournament he plays in.”
With five players finishing inside the top-10, the Rams didn’t let their foot off the gas on Tuesday and came home with a 17-shot victory at a score of 19-over. The win completed a fall season with four wins out of five tournaments, which matches their highest overall win total since 2016-17.
With their spring schedule to look forward to, Rhode Island will look to build on this success when they return to action in March.