Gutierrez has strong finish, Bethel golf finishes 10th in Hesston Invite
Gutierrez led the team with a 32nd-place finish over the two-day tournament.
HESSTON — The Bethel men’s golf team competed on Monday and Tuesday at the Hesston Invite. The team finished 10th as a whole.
The team is led by head coach Gregg Dick and participants in the tournament were Nathan Gutierrez, Caleb Koontz, Jacob Regier, Luke Riffel, Gavin Rogers, and Eric Schmidt.
“As a team, we came out looking nervous and not quite ready to go which showed in our scores on the 36 holes on Monday,” Dick said. “We had only practiced for four days so maybe it was a little soon to get out there but I think in the end it will help us know more what we need to work on in the next couple of weeks.
“Nathan Gutierrez had a couple good rounds and looks like he is on track to have a good senior year. He has made some huge strides recently, especially in his mental game, that should continue to help him improve.”
As the team prepared for four days prior, they knew going in this would be a rusty showing, but a certain individual excelled and the non-existent score due to technical difficulties didn’t do his performance justice.
“I think I played a bit rough at the beginning, struggling to hit greens and hit accurate tee shots,” Gutierrez, senior from Bixby, Okla. said. “After the first round, my accuracy and putting came together to help significantly lower my score.”
Gutierrez finished tied for 32nd through three rounds. He scored an 82 on the first, 75 on the second, and 74 on the third for a total of 231 on both days.
“I think our team started off a bit rocky but we managed to pull it together in the following rounds,” Gutierrez said. “Collectively we left some shots out there, but we made up for it in our other two rounds.”
Koontz finished 48th, Rogers took the 50 spot, Regier was 61st, Riffel finished 63rd and Schmidt was 64th.
“The other guys [excluding Gutierrez] were all kind of in a pack together,” Dick said. “I am looking forward to continuing to see our scores drop individually and as a team as these guys continue to work at improving this fall.
“We have a number of good tournaments we are playing this fall that should provide us with good challenges and opportunities to get better.”
The Threshers will take the green next on Sep. 11 as they face Haskell at the Emporia Municipal Golf Course.