By Max Calderone | Sports Writer
The No. 10-ranked Baylor men’s golf team finished in fifth place after three days of competition in the Big 12 Championship tournament.
The Bears entered as the No. 3 seed in the conference, but couldn’t seem to find a lasting rhythm, remaining in the middle of the pack from wire-to-wire.
No. 4 Oklahoma found itself on top of the tournament, followed by the nation’s top ranked team, Oklahoma State. No. 18 Texas and Iowa State rounded out the teams ahead of Baylor.
The Bears shot a collective 37-over-par at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., seven shots back of the Cyclones ahead of them on the leaderboard. The Sooners took the tournament with a combined score of 19-over.
Baylor’s best individual round came from sophomore Cooper Dossey, who scored a three-under 67 in round two of the tournament. Sophomore Colin Kober was the only other Bear to have a round below par, a third round 69 on Tuesday.
The golfers played four rounds over the three days of competition, beginning Monday and lasting through a rain-soaked Wednesday. The Bears shot a team-best 280 in round three, good for even-par.
Baylor’s best individual scorers were junior Braden Bailey and senior Matthew Perrine, who tied with each other for 14th place overall at +9. Dossey finished two strokes below the duo with a 22nd place score of +11. Junior Garrett May and Kober also cracked the top 40 with scores of +16 and +17 respectively.
Perrine told reporters before the tournament that it would be nice to finish his collegiate career with a win at the Big 12 Championship.
“We haven’t performed great at Big 12 my years here, so I think we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder heading into it,” Perrine told The Baylor Bear Foundation’s Jerry Hill. “It would be that much sweeter to go in there and bring home a ring.”
There was a four-way tie at the top of the individual leaderboard between Oklahoma State’s Kristoffer Ventura, Texas’s Doug Ghim, Kansas State’s Jeremy Gandon and Oklahoma’s Grant Hirschman, who all finished at +3. Ghim was this year’s Low Amateur at The Masters Tournament earlier this month.
With the regular season complete, the Bears await the NCAA Selection Show to find out where they will travel for regionals, which will air at 4:30 p.m. May 2nd on the Golf Channel. Baylor is expected to earn its 21st consecutive berth to the postseason.
Head coach Mike McGraw said after the conference tournament that it was a rough three days for his team, but they remain optimistic heading into regional play.
“That was a tough day on everybody, but we just made it a lot tougher on ourselves than it should’ve been,” McGraw said after the match. “It was a bad start. We were way over early, and we just couldn’t ever recover. It’s disappointing, but we’ve got a lot left in this season. We’re really excited for the NCAA selection show to find out where we get to go for regionals.”
