Published 2008-02-29T00:00:00Z”/>

Elizabeth Varin

Feb. 27, 2008 The men’s golf team finished a disappointing sixth out of 14 teams at the Poor Boy Invitational in Bakersfield Tuesday after loosing one of its best players.

Art Golden III was “a really big part of our production in the fall,” but an injury about four weeks ago left him unable to play, head coach T.L. Brown said.

“It’s kind of a bummer, but I’m more worried about his health,” Brown said.

Brown is hopeful Golden will be able to come back in time for the Cal State Stanislaus tournament April 14, he said. However, the injury may be more serious.

“Art’s chomping at the bit wanting to play golf,” Brown said. “He was the heart and soul of the team.”

The ‘Cats started with a bad first round, but a good last round pushed the team ahead of Cal State Monterey Bay to finish in sixth place.

Daniel Clayton was the lowest-placing ‘Cat tying for 51st place out of 79 players. This was Clayton’s second match of the season.

Kevin Horan went with the ‘Cats to compete individually and tied for the 31st position with six over par.

Kyle Hansen only has one semester left to play and it “hungry to play strong,” Brown said. Hansen finished tied for 46th with six over par.

Ryan Trask also tied for 46th. Trask was one of the top two players going into the tournament, Brown said.

The other top player is Lucas Delgado. He demonstrated that by being the only Wildcat who finished under par and placed 11th.

Delgado and Brett Viboch are the only two players who are definitely on the plane to the next tournament in San Diego, Brown said.

Viboch, an explosive player, was only one over par and placed 21st, Brown said.

However, Viboch wasn’t satisfied with his results, he said.

He was excited to play his first tournament since a year and ½ ago, but his excitement was more of a hindrance, he said.

Viboch expected the ‘Cats to do a lot better, but they were “a little rusty” because their last tournament was at the end of October.

“We got the cobwebs off,” he said.

Both Brown and Viboch said that a lot of the problems came from putting.

“Everyone on the team seemed to struggle on the green,” Viboch said. “The green’s a lot faster and undulated than anything we’ve played on recently.”

After the team got used to the green, the scores started to improve, but weren’t enough to completely cancel out the first round.

“We kind of had a bad first round,” Brown said. “We’re a better team than that.”

As for the rest of the tournament, Cal State Stanislaus beat out one of the nation’s best golf teams, UCLA, by a stroke. However, Brown is not intimidated by this feat, as he credits that to one of the Warriors’ players.

“We’re not a team of superstars,” Brown said. “We’re a team of depth.”

Elizabeth Varin can be reached at<a href= “mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a>