by Ryan Daugherty
Reporter
The Baylor men’s golf team is back in action with the Bayou City Collegiate Championships in Humble, Texas. The tournament will run from today through Sunday as Baylor looks to continue its successful season.
Six Baylor golfers will be making the trip, including sophomore Filippo Zucchetti, freshman Andreas Gjesteby, sophomore Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen, sophomore Niclas Mansson, senior Matthew Seligmann, senior Ryan O’ Rear, and sophomore Kyle Jones who won last week’s UTSA Oak Hills Invitational.
Jones was just named national player of the week by Golfweek magazine. He became the first player in program history to win the award.
“It’s a great feeling,” Jones said. “It’s a sign to myself that I’m moving in the right direction, but I still have a lot of work to do.”
Baylor comes into this tournament ranked No. 40 in the latest Golfstat rankings and could move higher if it fares well this weekend.
Hosts of the three-day event at the Redstone Golf Club will be the University of Houston and Rice University. Play will start at 10 a.m. today and Saturday, and the final round will start at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday. Baylor will be one of 15 schools competing.
Among the other 14 competing schools are No. 2 Texas, No. 37 Houston, Rice, Charlotte, No. 42 Chattanooga, East Carolina, Houston Baptist, No. 48 Indiana, Lamar, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, No. 43 South Carolina, UT Arlington, and UTSA.
This tournament will be a homecoming for Seligmann, who was born in Houston and attended Episcopal High School. He looks forward to competing and playing on a familiar course.
“I am most excited to have my family be able to come watch because the tournament is in Houston where I am from,” he said. “It’s also at my home golf course where I played golf growing up.”
There is a positive vibe among the participating golfers. This will be the fifth tournament for Gjesteby, and he said that he is confident in his game this weekend.
“I have been practicing great over the past week, working on what I didn’t do too well last tournament,” he said. “I am ready to meet whatever challenges I may meet this weekend. I have some goals for my own game, such as taking my time and not getting stressed if I hit some bad shots. If I’m able to do this, I’m pretty sure I’ll do well.”
Gjesteby will be the first Baylor golfer to tee off and he said he felt good about the team’s chances.
“If we trust ourselves and play as good as we know we can, we can beat any team,” he said.
Seligmann said that the team as a whole is improving and he also believes that they can make some noise this weekend.
“I think our team is really coming together,” he said. “The desire to win and be great has definitely been installed into each of us which I think can lead to great things.”
For anyone who is interested in following the tournament, live scoring will be available at Golfstat.com where scores and tee times will be provided.
