Over Easter break, the Notre Dame men’s golf team competed in the Boilermaker Invitational, placing fifth. The team finished its regular season finale shooting a total of 843 (-9). The four teams that surpassed the Irish were Marquette University in the No. 1 spot, Purdue in No. 2, Illinois at No. 3 and Michigan State at No. 4.
Freshman Mike Qiu led the Irish on the fairway to finish 18th and gained his lowest score of the season. Over the three rounds, the freshman finished overall with a final score of 212 (-1). To kick off the invitational, Qiu started the day finishing with a score of 72 (+1) before finishing the back end carding his best score of the season 66 (-5) to place him in competition with the top individual performers overall. Qiu finished out the competition scoring 74 (+3).
Following Qiu were sophomores Jacob Modleski and Rocco Salvitti who tied for 23rd place with a score of 213 (E). Despite Qiu’s strong start in the invitational, Salvitti scored the lowest to start day one shooting 67 (-4) holding first place through the first 18 holes. Salvitti finished out the day carding a 69 (-2) before heading into Sunday’s competition where he shot a 77 (+6). Modleski followed as he finished day one shooting 73 (+2) before rounding out Saturday carding 69 (-2). The sophomore finished with a 71 (E) on the final day of competition.
A pair of juniors finished one stroke apart as Nate Stevens took 43rd with an overall score of 216 (+3) and Calen Sanderson finished 47th with a score of 217 (+4). Starting off the competition, Stevens posted a score of 73 (+2) and finished the day with a score of 75 (+4). Going into the second day and final round, Stevens carded a 68 (-3) to move up 25 places in the competition. Sanderson earned a season-low second round of 68 (-3), but followed up the strong performance with a 76 (+5) in his third. In the final round on Sunday, Sanderson’s final score of 73 (+1) landed him in 47th place.
Looking ahead to the ACC tournament, the Irish have much to look forward to. They will tee off against fierce competition in the tournament including Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, North Carolina State, SMU, Stanford and Virginia. The first round is set to start on Thursday, April 24 in Bowling Green, Kentucky at 9 a.m.
