Heading into the weekend’s tournament, the Arizona men’s golf team was the No. 62 ranked team overall, desperately fighting for one of the final postseason spots that have become more difficult to clinch this season.

But the Wildcats were not able to prove themselves as a legitimate playoff contender with their team performance over the weekend at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational, where the team tied for 10th place, shooting a combined 28-over-par. The tie moves the Wildcats one spot below contention for clinching the playoffs, which means they now must look ahead two weeks to the Pacific 10 Championships, where they will need a fifth-place finish or better to get over the .500 mark.

The team struggled through the first round, placing 12th, but was able to move up five spots in round two. A rough third round, which included a combined 8-over-par on the final three holes, gave Arizona a 10th-place finish.

“”We rebounded through round two and I thought things were going to be all right, but we finished terrible,”” said UA assistant coach John Knauer. “”We just blew it.””

For a team that needed a strong finish to use as a determinant for a legitimate postseason claim, it was unable to build up any sort of momentum.

Junior Nick Park led the way for the Wildcats, finishing in a ninth-place tie at 1-over-par, but he competed as an individual so his score didn’t count for the team.

Freshman Roberto Galletti finished in a tie for 16th place, shooting 3-over-par. Freshman Tarquin MacManus (6 over, 31st), junior Tyler Neal (10 over, 56th) and senior Creighton

Honeck (11 over, 57th) rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats.

Arizona will spend the next week working and focusing on what it needs to do to place high at the Pac-10 Championships.

“”The competition is tough in our conference, but I think we can compete,””
Knauer said.