Bucknell Men’s Golf Wins Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge with School-Record Score

Sunday, September 23

Quechee, Vt. (Quechee Club)

All Day

Bucknell University

Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge

Bucknell Men’s Golf Wins Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge with School-Record Score

9/23/2018 5:28:00 PM | Men's Golf

FINAL RESULTS

QUECHEE, Vt. – It was a banner day for the Bucknell men's golf team, which counted sub-par rounds from J.P. Raftery (68), Connor O'Brien (69), and Chris Tanabe (69) on the way to a school-record 7-under-par team score and a five-stroke victory at the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge.

O'Brien and Tanabe both posted 4-under 140 at the 36-hole tournament to finish in a tie for first place in the individual standings. Brown's Drew Powell dropped a birdie on the first extra hole to win a four-man playoff with O'Brien, Tanabe, Drexel's Connor Schmidt.

After a rare tough day with an 81 on Saturday, Raftery stormed back with a 4-under 68 on Sunday to soar 30 spots in the standings all the way up to T-15th.

This was the first time since the second round of the 2009 Bucknell Invitational that the Bison chalked up three sub-par rounds. That day, Andrew Wallisch shot 66, and Andrew Cohen and Brian Bartow both carded 68s en route to a school-record 276 team total. Bucknell also shot 276 at the Patriot League Championship at the Bucknell Golf Club in 2017, but those were 4-under totals on a par-70 course.

Sunday's 7-under 281 at Quechee Club is the team record in relation to par by three shots, and it is also the lowest total score ever recorded away from home.

This is the 39th tournament title in school history and the fourth under head coach Michael Binney, who is three events into his fifth season at Bucknell. The Bison last won at the Lehigh Invitational in October 2016, and this outstanding senior class also contributed to victories at Lehigh and Yale during the 2015-16 season.

"Every player on our team has the ability to shoot under par, it's just a matter of how many on any particular day," said Binney. "I still believe we have the potential to see all five under par. The team is really locked in right now, which is exciting to see. We are looking forward to our upcoming events at Yale, Bucknell and Lehigh to try to cement this fall as one of our best ever."

Bucknell began the final round in sixth place in the 12-team field, but the Bison were well within striking distance only five shots off the lead on a tightly bunched leaderboard. They made up that deficit quickly, as Raftery, O'Brien and Tanabe quickly went into red numbers.

Raftery started his round on the par-5 7th hole and quickly made a birdie, his first of four birdies on the course's five par-5s. His lone blemish of the day was a bogey-5 at No. 12. Raftery was even heading to the par-5 15th, then proceeded to birdie three of the next four holes. He added one more birdie back around at No. 5, giving him a 33 on the course's front nine.

Raftery's 68 was the best in the field all weekend. He has three career 67s to his credit, but his only other 4-under round was a 67 at the par-71 Naval Academy GC at the 2016 Patriot League Championship.

Tanabe, who entered the weekend with a team-best 72.8 scoring average, birdied four of his first 10 holes with just one bogey in that stretch. He stuffed his tee shot about a foot from the pin at the 200-yard par-3 13th hole, and that tap-in birdie left him at 3-under for the day. Tanabe double-bogeyed the 14th, but bounced right back with birdies at 15 and 17, and then he parred out for a career-best 69.

O'Brien, who was making his season debut this weekend, followed up his opening-round 71 with a 3-under 69. O'Brien started at the fifth hole and was even through eight, and then he really got rolling with three birdies in a five-hole span on the back nine. He dropped back to -2 with a bogey at No. 2, but then finished with a clutch birdie at the par-3 4th hole to get him into the playoff.

Bucknell's fourth counting score was a solid 75 from freshman Carter Cook, who made two birdies in his round. Jubal Early's 79 was discarded, and freshman Dylan Ford wrapped up his first collegiate event with a 78, playing as an individual.

All told, the six players in orange shirts combined for 22 birdies on the day.

O'Brien and Tanabe were trying to become Bucknell's first individual tournament champion since Dan Bernard captured the Bucknell Invitational in the fall of 2012.

Bucknell finished with a 583 total for 36 holes, which ended up five better than Cornell and Princeton. Defending champion Drexel was fourth at 589, followed by Harvard (599), Dartmouth (600), Holy Cross (601), Hartford (602), Siena (604), Brown (607), Fordham (610) and Bryant (615).

Six of the 74 players in the field finished under par for the tournament, including the four playoff participants at 4-under. Princeton's Evan Quinn was -3, and Harvard's Grand Fairbairn was -1.

The Bison preceded their win at Quechee Club with a strong fourth-place finish out of 15 teams at the Cornell Invitational a week early. Now they will head to another Ivy League team's event when they compete at Yale's Macdonald Cup next Saturday and Sunday.