By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
After upsetting top-ranked Arizona State Tuesday, Baylor men’s golf closed out Big 12 Match Play with a 4-1 championship loss to BYU on Wednesday at the Clubs at Houston Oaks Country Club in Hockley.
Coming off a second-place finish in 2023, the third time in six years the program had finished in the top two, Baylor knocked off TCU and the No. 2 Sun Devils to again earn a spot in the finals.
“If you had told me Monday morning that we would play in the championship, I’d have been very happy with that,” head coach Mike McGraw said. “Despite the disappointment we feel right now, and believe me, we do feel it, we got beat pretty good today. I was really proud of watching Jonas [Appel] earn that last point, so we didn’t get shut out, which was great. And really, Zach [Heffernan] was in his match, and Drew [Wrightson] was in his match late, so we had a chance to flip those matches, just didn’t do it.”
Heffernan scored a pair of wins on Tuesday, defeating TCU’s Joe Padgin and Arizona State’s Preston Summerhays, the No. 1-ranked player in the PGA Tour University rankings. He knocked off Summerhays, a Boerne native, 2&1, after draining clutch birdies on Nos. 16 and 17 to end the match.
“I’m so proud of our team and the way they played all day today,” McGraw said Tuesday. “To scrap and fight in the morning to even earn a spot in the championship was impressive, and then to go out and beat the No. 2 team in the country, with some really clutch golf late, was a massive accomplishment. I think this team showed us today how good they can be, so we’ll go out there and let it rip again tomorrow.”
Appel continue to impress on Wednesday, earning a victory for the second straight day, but a talented BYU team proved too much to overcome. Heffernan (8-2 in his last two appearances at Hockley) dropped a 2-up round to the Cougars’ Peter Kim and freshman Vincent Stjernfeldt lost his first match of the week to the Cougars’ Cole Ponich, 3&2. Wrightson finished the week 1-2-2 after losing 2&1 to Simon Kwon, and Davis Ovard rounded out the week at 2-3 after a 4&3 loss to Tyson Shelley.
The championship match appearance was big for the Bears, who are now the only team in Big 12 Match Play history to appear in four championship matches, and one of three to make the finals in back-to-back seasons. They’ll hit the road again on Oct. 28 for The Clerico at Oral Roberts in Tusla, Oklahoma.
“I know the guys aren’t going to feel it right now because we just had a disappointing loss, but they have to know that there’s more in the tank,” McGraw said. “Those first two tournaments really had nothing to do with who we are. We are going to change the momentum for the season, so we need to spend a day or so recovering. We have a fall break this week, and I’m going to let them go home. They need to be away from me and the coaches for a while. It will be a step in the right direction, and we’ve got two and a half weeks to get ready for the tournament in Tulsa, and I’m really excited about that.”
