Bennett Shoots 2-Over Par 74 In Round One Of NCAA Championships
Senior Andrew Bennett (Bossier City, La.) shot a 2-over par 74 on Tuesday and is tied for 80th place after round one of the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships at The Legacy Golf Club.
Boulder City, Nev. - Senior Andrew Bennett (Bossier City, La.) shot a 2-over par 74 on Tuesday and is tied for 80th place after round one of the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships at The Legacy Golf Club.
Live Scoring: https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=29175
Official NCAA DIII Golf Home Page: https://www.ncaa.com/sports/golf-men/d3
Bennett, who claimed the individual title at last month's Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships in Whitney, Texas, is one of six individuals participating in the championships this week. He is the first Centenary men's golfer to qualify for the NCAA Championships in the division III era (2013-present).
Bennett is one of 25 golfers tied for 80th place which includes Avery Stansell of Rhodes College, a fellow individual participant. Emory University's Jackson Klutnick is the overall individual leader at 8-under par 64, one shot ahead of Washington & Lee's Jonathan McEwen. Methodist University is the team leader after round one at 17-under par 271 and is one shot ahead of Emory (16-under 272) and four shots in front of Redlands (13-under par 275).
Round two on Wednesday shifts to Boulder Creek Golf Club (par 72, 7,377 yards) and Bennett will tee off at 8:05 a.m. on the #1 tee. He will be paired with Jacob Yarbrough of Wittenberg University and Nadir Khan of Allegheny College. Bennett is just two strokes shy of being in the top 50.
The championships will be hosted by UNLV and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and runs through Friday. The team and individual champions will be determined after 72 holes of play or the conclusion of the last fully completed round. Forty-three teams and six individuals not on one of those teams will be selected to participate in the championships. After 36 holes of competition, the field will be cut to the top 18 teams and top six individuals not on one of those teams. Two courses are being used this week - Legacy (par 72, 7,077 yards) and Boulder Creek Golf Club.
A total of 221 participants are competing at the 2024 championships. Thirty-four conferences were awarded an automatic qualification for the championships. One team was selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. The final eight berths were reserved for Pool C, which are institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champion and any remaining Pool B teams. The six individuals were selected from the remaining players who have not qualified with a team.
Bennett finished nine shots ahead of Jacob Mason of Trinity University (+5 – 221) at the conference championships last month as he claimed his second-career victory after he won the individual title at the UMHB Men's Invitational this past Fall. He earned First-Team All-SCAC honors last month and was named SCAC Men's Golfer of the Week once this season.
Bennett started on the back nine on Tuesday and went par-birdie-par in his first three holes, then had par on his middle three, and finished bogey-par-bogey for a 1-over 37. He then went to the front nine and shot par-bogey-bogey to start and then shot five-straight par's before finishing strong with a birdie on his final hole for a 1-over 37.
Bennett, Mason, and Stansell are joined this week by three other players competing as individuals:
Gabe Benson, Concordia-Moorhead +6 – 78 (Tied 163rd place)
Elliot Parker, Drew Even – 72 (Tied 46th place)
James Alden, Guilford +3 – 75 (Tied 105th place)
Carnegie Mellon is the defending national champion, winning the 2023 team title in Nicholasville, Kentucky. For more information about the NCAA Division III Men's Golf Championships, log on to NCAA.com.
See the Gents' complete season schedule here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/mgolf/2023-24/schedule
#GoCentenary #CTheOpportunity
