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Central Arkansas golf falls one shot short in Florida tournament
The Bears climbed within one stroke of first place during the final round before settling for a close third-place finish.
Central Arkansas didn’t quite finish the job this week, but the climb back up the leaderboard says plenty about where this team is headed.
The Bears spent Monday through Wednesday at the Sandestin Collegiate Classic, playing three rounds at The Raven Golf Club in Sandestin, Florida.
It wasn’t a smooth start. UCA sat 12 strokes off the lead after round one, a hole that would’ve buried a lot of teams this early in the season.
The Bears didn’t stay buried for long. UCA shot an incredible 9-under in round two, a jump that moved the team up 10 spots on the leaderboard in a single day.
That kind of turnaround doesn’t happen without every golfer in the lineup finding something.
By the time the final round started, UCA was tied for second place and just five strokes back of first. The Bears kept chipping away and actually pulled within one stroke of the lead about halfway through the last round.
UCA settles for third at Sandestin
The comeback ran out of holes before it ran out of steam. UCA closed the tournament in third place at 1-under for the event. Mercer and West Florida tied for the win at 2-under, just one stroke ahead of the Bears.
Fourteen teams and 80 golfers played in the event, and UCA’s consistency stood out even without the trophy. The Bears carded 195 pars, more than any other team in the field, along with 36 birdies and one eagle for the week.
UT Arlington was the only other Atlantic Sun team in the tournament. The Owls shot 16-over and finished 10th.
Burk and Norman pace the Bears
Junior Blane Burk and freshman Sam Norman each finished at 1-under for the tournament, tying for 13th place individually. Burk got there a different way than Norman did.
He opened with a plus-4 in round one, then turned things around with a minus-3 and a minus-2 over the final two rounds. Norman started fast instead, carding a minus-4 in round one before rounds of plus-1 and plus-2.
Sophomore Cohen Kinnard rounded out the top scorers for UCA at 1-over. Freshmen Leopold Isserentant and Vukasin Suturovic closed things out at 4-over and 5-over.
There isn’t much time to rest on this result. The Bears head to Birmingham, Alabama, next for the GMAC Invitational, set for September 20-22.
