First-hole albatross by Jake Rodgers sets tone as CSU men rally to win their Ram Masters Invite, marking their 9th victory in the last 10 years in the event; Jack Kennedy notches win in CSU coaching debut
By Gary Baines – 9/18/2024
FORT COLLINS — As final-round starts in college golf go, it doesn’t get much better than how it went down Wednesday for the host Colorado State University men’s team at its own Ram Masters Invitational at Fort Collins Country Club.
The first player designated as competing for the team to tee it up — Jake Rodgers — made an albatross on the par-5 first hole. And three of his teammates — Matthew Wilkinson of Centennial, Christoph Bleier and Alessandro Trenta — added birdies, giving the Rams a 6-under-par team total for the first hole of the final round.
“Being 6 under through 1 as a team isn’t too bad to start the day,” said Jack Kennedy, who was making his tournament debut as CSU’s head coach. “It makes you look like your game plan and your pep talk the night before was actually worth something.”
As it turned out, that start proved pivotal in CSU beginning its college season with a four-stroke victory. It also helped the Rams set the team scoring record for the tournament as they finished at 22 under par, bettering the previous mark of 17 under, set by CSU in 2017 and matched in 2022.
CSU sophomore Jake Rodgers shot a final-round 67 — after starting the day with an albatross — to spark the Rams.
The Rams went into the final round four behind leader Utah Tech (formerly called Dixie State), but they closed with the best round of any team in the tournament — a 13-under-par 267 — to prevail by four over UT.
So, a year after CSU saw its eight-year team win streak in the RMI end, it regained control of the trophy on Wednesday. Of the dozen times the Ram Masters has been contested, the Rams have won nine.
“Obviously the streak ended last year and no one ever wants to be part of that,” said Wilkinson, the Arapahoe High School graduate who won the CGA Match Play and finished second in the CGA Amateur this year. “But to come back this year and set the scoring record for a team (for the tournament) … Everyone had some good golf in there — and some bad golf — but we jelled as a team and were able to get the win. I’m happy for everyone.”
Though CSU didn’t get the individual victory — that went to Valparaiso’s Anthony Delisanti, who matched the tournament scoring record of 13 under shot by CSU’s Connor Jones last year — the Rams put four players in the top 10. Rodgers (-9) placed a college-career-best second, while Trenta (-6) tied for fourth after closing with a 64, and Wilkinson and Bleier shared 10th place (-3). Rounding out the winning team was Bryant Hernandez (+8).
Coloradan Matthew Wilkinson, the 2024 CGA Match Play champion, opened the season with a 10th-place individual showing.
Among the Colorado-based schools, also in the top 10 were the University of Colorado’s Justin Biwer (fourth at -6) and Hunter Swanson of Denver (ninth at -4). It was Swanson’s second straight top-10 to start the season. Meanwhile, Biwer finished two positions shy of his career college best, a runner-up at last fall’s Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational.
“I’ve finished probably everything from second to 10th over the three and a half years (in college golf),” Biwer said. “I’ve never won a tournament (individually), but close. That’s definitely the goal this year, for sure.
“I started off super well this week (with a first-round 63, which tied CU’s single-round record). The last two tournaments I’ve shot 6-under 65 and 7-under 63 so stuff is very close as well on my end. I’ll just keep playing well, keep hammering away and things will take care of themselves.”
Justin Biwer shared fourth place to lead CU, which placed third as a team.
Team-wise, CU, coming off a runner-up showing in its season opener, tied for third out of 16 teams on Wednesday. “It’s moving in the right direction,” Biwer said. “We have high expectations this season. We’re close.”
Meanwhile, the University of Denver finished 14th and Northern Colorado 15th on Wednesday. By the way, a UNC golfer, Takato Imo, made a hole-in-one on Wednesday at the second hole, en route to a final-round 75. Also recording an ace on Wednesday was William Tanaka of Cal State Fullerton, at No. 9.
Kennedy, who officially was named CSU’s head coach just last month, had an unenviable task to start his tenure in Fort Collins given the Rams’ success in their home tournament. Anything less than a team victory this week likely would have been looked upon like a failure in the minds of the CSU faithful. But with Wednesday’s rally, a victory is what they — and the Rams — got.
“It’s tough,” Kennedy acknowledged. “Whether it was my first tournament or my 10th tournament, it’s their home event, so you’ve got pressure on you to win. I’m learning quite a bit about the CU rivalry as this week has progressed so it’s obviously nice for the Rams to come out on top in golf. That was an exciting thing that people kept talking to me about. I have a lot of texts on my phone currently from a lot of Ram fans. It’s exciting.”
New CSU head coach Jack Kennedy talks with Rodgers on the ninth green on Wednesday.
And it pretty much all started on Wednesday with that albatross from Rodgers, a sophomore from Oregon. He hit a good drive up the right side of the fairway on the 566-yard first hole, then selected a 7-iron from 225 yards (it was a little downwind) and had his ball hit on the green about 25 feet short of the flag then roll at a nice pace straight into the cup.
“It’s amazing,” the 19-year-old said. “I know a lot of good players — even on the PGA Tour — don’t have an albatross. To do that is just amazing.”
To add to the feat, it was the second albatross/double eagle of Rodgers’ young career as he had one on the first hole of his home course — Arrowhead Golf Club in Malalla, Ore. — about a year and a half ago in a casual round. For that one, he holed a 6-iron shot from 195 yards.
And for the record, besides his two albatrosses, Rodgers has four holes-in-one to his credit.
“I just get lucky,” he said matter-of-factly. “When it goes near the hole, it seems to go in.”
Despite Colorado State’s fast start, the team race was tight throughout the day on Wednesday, with CSU and Utah Tech trading leads and CU hot on their heels.
As late as the last few holes, Utah Tech was up by one. But a strong finish by the Rams — two birdies in the last three holes by Bleier, a back-nine 31 by Trenta, birdies on 15 and 16 by Wilkinson and one on 16 by Rodgers — helped put them over the top.
“We finished strong and we kind of had those nerves going at the end,” Wilkinson said. “We’re like, ‘Let’s get a couple of birdies at the end and make this thing happen.’ It felt good to be a part of that.”
Hunter Swanson, a CU golfer from Denver, has posted two straight top-10s to start the season.
It was certainly a nice way for the Rams to start the season — even if they had to wait until the second half of the month to compete for real.
“I think we were all ready to tie up the shoes and put a tee in the ground and get after it,” Wilkinson said. “In years past we’ve started in early September, so this was definitely a little change of pace.”
Kennedy said he played a low-key role during the opener.
“It starts with our leadership,” he said. “Jake and Matthew and Christoph have just been great leaders, great golfers, really teaching the young guys how to play this course and teaching me how to play this course. I was very hands-off this week. I was there for motivation — I was the ‘hype guy’ — trying to keep them in a mentally good space. They knew the course and they have all in talent in the world to go out and shoot the scored they did.
“We had no double bogeys all week (from a player whose score counted toward the team total), which I think is a phenomenal stat. That’s why you tend to be at the top.”
For Rodgers, starting off the season with a runner-up finish was satisfying as well as spectacular, given his albatross.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been working a lot on my putting. I’ve got a putting coach. I putted really well this week. I didn’t hit it good, but I got the most I could out of my ball-striking and my putting. It all came together.”
For the record, Kennedy said none of his players in his coaching career had made an albatross before Wednesday.
“Lot of holes-in-one, no albatrosses,” he said. “That’s a good one. It’s a good time to start too.”
For all the scores from the Ram Masters Invitational, CLICK HERE.
Also this week, CU senior Freddy Eisenbeis placed third out of 32 players at Arizona State’s Papago Individual, posting a three-round total of 4-under-par 209.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com