Men’s Golf Finishes Seventh at NCAA Regional

Morgan Hill, Calif. – A strong final day pushed the Missouri men’s golf team to seventh place during the California regional of the NCAA Tournament, while two Tigers recorded top-15 individual finishes.

Charlie Crockett led Mizzou with an even-par 72 on the final day, finishing the tournament with a one-under 215. Crockett placed fourth overall of 77 golfers in California – the sixth-best finish for a Tiger during a regional round in school history. Crockett followed up his 70-73 over the first 36 holes with a clean scorecard on the final day, posting one birdie, one bogey and 16 pars.

Freshman Alfons Bondesson finished a strong rookie season with a two-over 74 on Wednesday, carding an overall score of a one-over 217 during the week. Bondesson continued his strong push at the end of the season, following up his eighth-place SEC finish by carding the 11-best mark of the week at the NCAA Regional. In fact, his 11th-place finish matches the school record for a Mizzou freshmen during the regional round as Stuart Ballingall also placed 11th in 2010 for MU.

Freshman Antonio Safa matched Crockett for the best final round at 72, leading the Tigers with five birdies over the final 18 holes, including four in the final seven. Graduate DJ Springer (73) and junior Jack Lundin (74) rounded out the day for the Tigers with their best rounds of the week.

Overall, the Tigers carded the fourth-best score of the final round with a three-over 291. Mizzou placed seventh of 13 schools overall, marking the team’s best regional finish since placing third on its home course in 2014.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Coach Hankins on the NCAA Regional
“We’re a bit inexperienced and the second round was really hard. We just couldn’t put it together yesterday but today, I thought we had the best round. We played in the afternoon with the wind blowing and we shot the fourth-lowest round. I’m proud of our ability to adapt to this golf course, which was different every day and every nine holes. You don’t see that a lot in young teams. We’re trending in the right direction and I’m very proud of them.”

Coach Hankins on the 2022-23 season
“Lots of firsts. I thought some really good things happened, like two-straight years in the NCAA Regionals, two SEC Freshman of the Week from two different golfers, an All-SEC selection and SEC Player of the Week in Charlie and a stroke average that ranks fifth in the country. We return everybody but DJ from this week’s team and add a couple of players. We’ll have some expectations next year but we accomplished a lot of good things this year.”

Charlie Crockett on the season and the NCAA Regional
“We only have one senior on the team so I think this week was great for us to learn for next year and for year’s coming. I think this week was tough for us as it was something different and we had some interesting conditions with the course. The weather was great but it’s just different golf for us. It was eye-opening and a great experience. It was challenging as you had to be really adaptive each day, each nine holes was different. In the morning, first nine holes is softer and the greens are quicker to an extent. Then in the afternoon, they dry up and are even quicker but even slower at the same time. You just had to be adaptive. It is always good to make improvements and I think we’ll continue to do so.”