The University of Arizona currently has a team ranked No. 1 in the country. Based on the school’s history, one might assume it would be the men’s or women’s basketball team — or maybe the softball or baseball team.
All of them have had a strong season, but none have had one as dominant as the Arizona men’s golf team, winners of back-to-back tournaments and currently rank as the No. 1 men’s college golf team in the country according to golfstat.com.
Leading the charge is senior Trevor Werbylo. Werbylo is a hometown kid and graduate of Salpointe Catholic High School. In Arizona’s last tournament, Werbylo finished tied for first place in The Prestige Tournament. A great achievement, but he has his eyes set on a much bigger prize.
Werbylo is not one of these athletes who has been playing their sport from a very young age. Werbylo played multiple sports and excelled at all of them, primarily baseball.
“Growing up, I pretty much played every sport,” Werbylo said. “My dad was a baseball coach so that was kind of my main sport when I was younger. I played a little bit of golf, mostly just all at [Randolph North Golf Course]. Once I got to junior high is when I started taking it a little bit more seriously. Then once I was a freshman in high school, I transitioned from baseball being my main sport to golf.”
Werbylo is proof that playing multiple sports can create several skills that carry over from one sport to the next. Growing up, Werbylo never had a real swing coach other than his older brother. So instead, he crafted his game by watching YouTube videos of one of the greatest golfers of all time.
“I watched a lot of golf on TV, watched a lot of YouTube videos of [Tiger Woods],” Werbylo said, “kind of figuring it out myself.”
RELATED: Arizona men’s golf team shares multiple trophies at The Prestige Tournament
That doesn’t mean Werbylo didn’t put in the work to get to a level where he was good enough to play college golf. He did have some challenges as he was learning the game’s mental side — which any pro golfer will tell you is just as important as how pretty your swing is.
Golf can be a tough game, no matter how good you are. There are a lot of things you can’t control and sometimes, you get bad breaks. Learning how to deal with those is tough for any young golfer and that was the same for Werbylo.
“I matured and me as a person, I don’t show that much emotion so that kind of reflects on the golf course,” Werbylo said. “I looked up to guys like [Woods], and all these other pros and I didn’t see them throwing tantrums on the course.”
Golf is a game all about moving onto the next shot. With that said, if Werbylo had the opportunity to go back and tell his freshman self one thing, it would be that playing great golf does not require you to hit every shot perfectly.
“Playing really good golf is just doing a lot of tiny things well,” Werbylo said.
Early on in his college career, Werbylo had a tendency to compare himself to older guys and thought the shots they were hitting were much better than his. But as the currently ranked No. 6 golfer in the PGA TOUR’s University Full Standings has matured, Werbylo said he has started to understand that he can compete with the best.
Golf is an individual sport at its core, but in college, it’s a team game. Werbylo is a team-first guy and while winning tournaments is great, he is focused on playing well in May. Werbylo said he believes this team is fully capable of winning a national championship.
The final rankings come out after the National Championship and the top 5 players earn membership on the Korn Ferry Tour, an almost-equivalent of a Triple-A baseball team.
Players ranked six through 15 earn membership on the Mackenzie Tour, PGA TOUR Canada or the PGA TOUR Latino-America.
Update to the Arizona men’s golf team in the Cabo Collegiate: As of writing this on Tuesday, March 2, the men’s golf team finished their second-round at The Cabo Collegiate and it has been a tough tournament for them so far. After two rounds they sit in 12th place at +34. They still have one more day of golf to right the ship and rise the leaderboards.
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