No. 7 Men’s Golf set to open season at tournament hosted by national runner-up
The No. 7-ranked UHV Men's Golf team understands what it takes to be successful.
The Jaguars are coming off a fifth-place finish at the 2024 NAIA Men's Golf National Championships – the second best team finish in school history behind their fourth-place finish in 2022 – and a fourth straight trip to the national tournament.
They'll begin their push for a fifth consecutive National Championship appearance Sept. 9-10 when they travel to Hawks Creek Golf Course in Fort Worth for the Texas Wesleyan Fall Invite. The Rams finished as national runners-up last year at the national tournament.
"That's why we scheduled this right out of the gate," said head coach Garrett Adair. "We get to see where we are compared to one of the best programs in the nation on both sides. I'm looking for us to go up there and compete, and show that our team belongs. There's not much separating us and these other teams."
UHV returns third-team NAIA All-Americans Joshua Van der Wath and Nathan Biais.
Van der Wath, a senior from Johannesburg, South Africa, finished T-8 at the national tournament last year with rounds of 71-75-73-75—294, securing an automatic bid to the 2025 National Championship at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., should UHV not qualify as a team.
He boasted two wins at the Prairie View A&M-Texas Southern Tri-Match and UHV Fall Classic, and four Top 10 finishes last season. He closed the year as the No. 34-ranked golfer in the NAIA with a 73.2 adjusted scoring average by Scoreboard powered by Clippd, which keeps all statistics for collegiate golf.
Biais, a freshman from Chassors, France, returns as the reigning Red River Athletic Conference individual champion after shooting rounds of 69-67-70—206 (-10) to set a new record low score in a conference tournament for the Jaguars. He finished last year as the 41st-ranked golfer in the NAIA.
The Jaguars also return junior Paul Chopin, a native of Portiers, France. He finished T-5 (67-78-79—221) at the RRAC Tournament last year at Victoria Country Club.
Adair hopes that level of experience helps a group which features five new faces in Lucky Boonsrirat, Hugo Panos, Brady Copley, Ryan Romero and Ruben Valdez.
"It's going to be fun," Adair said. "Obviously, we've seen them playing in practice and in qualifying, but now we get to get them out into a tournament setting and see how they do. We have three strong guys coming back and they got a lot of confidence last year. So, really looking forward to getting these guys in the tournament environment, get some pressure on them and see how they do."
This is the first of three scheduled tournaments in the fall for the Jaguars. They'll compete in the Waco River Classic Sept. 16-17 and then the UHV Fall Classic Oct. 21-22.