After a productive extended off-season, the Texas men’s golf team will open its season Sept. 28 at the Colonial Collegiate Invitational.
The Colonial Collegiate Invitational will be the first of four tournaments for the men’s team this fall. Head coach John Fields and the team will head to the Big 12 Match Play Oct. 2, and will later compete in the Maridoe Collegiate Invitational and the prestigious East Lake Cup after a two-week competitive break.
Haskins Award Watch List players, junior Pierceson Coody and sophomore Travis Vick, each scored 69 to lead the team to first place in the East Lake Cup tournament last year. They will be key contributors in Texas’ matches against Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Pepperdine in late October.
Junior Cole Hammer, a recent participant in the U.S. Open, was also named to the Haskins Award Watch List. Hammer, who played alongside Jordan Spieth, a former Texas golfer and Masters champion, will help drive the momentum of the team this season. The then-sophomore shot 70 strokes at the East Lake Cup last fall, which greatly added to Texas’ first-place win. Graduate student Nick Costello will also continue his career with the team as he enters his last season of eligibility.
The men’s roster also includes new faces such as graduate student Hunter Ostrom and freshman Randall Fojtasek. Ostrom begins his graduate career at Texas after completing his undergraduate degree at Notre Dame, where he hit a career-low round of 66 strokes his senior season. Fojtasek brings with him a third-place finish at the 2019 Southern Championship and 2019 Veritex Bank Byron Nelson Junior Championship.
Spencer Soosman, who forewent his last year of eligibility to go pro, departed the 14-man roster. During his time at Texas, Soosman captured nine top-20 finishes for the Longhorns and posted the lowest score of his junior season at the Amer Ari tournament with a total of 215 points.
Golf was one of the NCAA sports that felt the initial shock when concerns about COVID-19 spurred sports cancelations across the country in March. As the world returns to something that resembles normalcy, the men’s golf team will begin the chase for the fourth national championship in program history.
