Marquette Golf Finishes 13th At NCAA Sammamish Regional

Marquette golf finished in 13th place out of 14 teams at the NCAA Regional at Aldarra Golf Club in Sammamish, Washington, on Wednesday, keeping even with their seeding at the start of the 54 hole event.

MU fired a team score of 899 across the three rounds, finishing at 47 strokes over par. USC won the event, shooting a three-under 849, while Penn State took the fifth and final spot to the NCAA Championship with an 11-over 863.

Marquette was in good shape to try to advance after the first round, sitting in eighth place at +7 and just five strokes back of the cut line. However, the Golden Eagles had a horrible day during the rain soaked second round, sliding from eighth to 11th due to a +24 team score and no one shooting better than Austin Kendziorski’s 76 (+5). The team rebounded a bit with a +16 on the final day, but the damage had already been done.

Freshman Matt Murlick finished with the best individual score for Marquette, going 73-77-71 to finish at +8 and tied for 29th place. Fellow freshman Matthew Bachmann, fresh off of his Big East individual championship, shot a 15-over 228 (75-77-76) to finish tied for 51st place.

It’s just the third NCAA regional appearance for Marquette, but it is the second in three years. With two freshmen and two sophomores in the five-some that head coach Steve Bailey took to the Pacific Northwest, hopefully there’s more of these regionals in the near future.