Everyone on the Texas men’s golf team enjoyed their weekend off after finishing fourth at the Southern Highlands Collegiate in Las Vegas, except for one player. Sophomore Daniel Bennett had an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
After winning a player vote at last year’s Arnold Palmer Cup, Bennett earned a sponsor’s exemption to make his PGA Tour debut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The Arnold Palmer Invitational is one of eight PGA Tour Signature Events, which offers a limited field featuring top players and increased prize money. Not only does the Arnold Palmer Invitational have the most competitive field, but the tournament is held at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge, which is the second-hardest course on tour.
“It’s a special place to play your first PGA Tour event,” Bennett said. “I think Mr. Palmer’s legacy is obviously really big in the golfing world. Just to have that opportunity to compete against the best players in the world was awesome.”
After back-to-back rounds of 1-under 71 on Thursday and Friday, Bennett made the cut by four strokes and sat T-21 heading into the weekend.
“I was kind of shocked how comfortable I felt,” Bennett said. “I thought it was going to be a little harder mentally adjusting, but I got into the groove pretty fast and felt super comfortable, even on Friday down the stretch when I was close to the cut line.”
Bennett shot 5-over 77 on Saturday and 2-over 74 on Sunday to finish the tournament five over par and tied for 47th place.
“It’s nice to know that I’m not that far away from really competing, especially if I start hitting it well,” Bennett said. “The margins are so small, and once that stuff gets dialed in, I’ll be up there and be able to compete, for sure.”
After Bennett concluded his final round, the 20-year-old rushed to the Orlando International Airport to catch his 7:30 p.m. flight. After a six-hour flight to San Francisco, Bennett joined his teammates at 11:30 p.m. before having to wake up at 5:40 a.m. to play 36 holes at the Desimone Invitational.
“Definitely a mental challenge,” Bennett said. “Sitting out there all day for five and a half hours during a college round is definitely not ideal when you just want to get home and get some sleep, but yeah, good to kind of grind through that … Definitely an interesting scenario, but good to experience that.”
No. 8 Texas finished tied for third place out of the 15-team field at the Desimone Invitational. Bennett was the lowest Longhorn as he finished tied for seventh place individually after three under par rounds, 70-69-69.
“It was nice to know that I could still go out there and give myself a chance to win, even though I wasn’t feeling great, (and) was also mentally pretty exhausted,” Bennett said. “Still good to get a top 10 finish and help the team a little bit. It’s good preparation for what you’ll see on tour. We’re going to be travelling all over the place, so gotta get used to it and learn how to recover and all of that properly.”
After a whirlwind week that included making the cut at his PGA Tour debut and a top-10 collegiate finish less than 24 hours later, Bennett will now prepare for the Valspar Collegiate Invitational on March 23-24.
