Front row: Jack McClintock, Aaron Pulanco and Brady Ohman. Back row: Coach Tim Swanson, Daniel Sayler, Jacob Dehne, Jeremy Kirk and Jordan Smith. Photo courtesy of UND Athletic Department/undsports.com

Jacob Dehne leads the way for UND in the Red Wolves Intercollegiate Tournament as the Hawks place 12th.

The Fighting Hawks men’s golf team was back in action Monday and Tuesday at the Red Wolves Intercollegiate Tournament. As a whole, the team finished in 12th place.

The annual tournament was held for the 20th time in in Jonesboro, Ark., with Arkansas State as the host school.

After starting the tournament a bit slow, UND was able to rally on the final day to move up two spots to 12th place.

Bismarck, N.D., native Jacob Dehne continued his successful season with a 74-stroke first round, 70-stroke second round and 76-stroke final round. Dehne’s efforts were good for a 17th place finish at seven strokes over par.

Sophomore Jack McClintock also shot three rounds of 70s as his final stroke counts were 78 in round one, 75 strokes in the second round and another 75-stroke performance in the third and final round. McClintock finished the tournament in 47th place and 15 shots over par.

McClintock has found success this season. He has strived to become a more consistent golfer, and it has                                         shown up in his game.

“Golf is tough sport. You’re going to have good days and bad days. I think consistency is something that I am trying to improve on with my game.” McClintock said.

Brady Ohman finished the tournament will three sub 80 rounds as well. The Grand Forks product posted a 76-stroke first round and then 79 strokes in both the second and third rounds. Ohman placed 62nd with a combined 21 strokes over par, which was a career high.

Freshman Jeremy Kirk finished 70th, shooting 36 over par and senior Aaron Pulanco finished the tournament at 72nd place.

Since North Dakota is cold through most of the season, the Fighting Hawks don’t have any meets at home. They travel all around the country.

“If we travel for three to four weeks in a row, the fourth week starts to become a grind,” Dehne said. “But, if we have a couple weeks off and then travel, I don’t believe it has any negative effect on us.”

Along with travel being difficult athletically at times, it also makes it harder for the golfers to stay up to date in their classes.

“We are on the road a lot, which leads to us missing quite a bit of class lecture time,” McClintock said. “Catching up with homework is a challenge, but we do our best to keep up.”

Seeing as they travel all over the country to various tournaments, they have been to many beautiful places where people go for vacation, and get to play on some of the best courses in the country.

Since Dehne is a senior, he has seen his fair share of different courses and has some favorites.

“It would be 50/50 between Drake’s tournament in Iowa last fall and Appalachian State’s tournament in North Carolina this past month,” Dehne said. “The two courses are completely different, but they are both well-maintained and in perfect condition.”

Because the team is smaller than most at UND with seven players, they have become very close.

“There is only seven of us on the team,” McClintock said. “So we are all really close and have great chemistry together.”

The next tournament for the men’s golf team is the Big Sky Championship. The championship is a 54-hole tournament that will be held April 30 through May 2 in Henderson, Nevada.

Adam Gunderman is a sports writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]