UND golf squad caps off fall season at Northern Intercollegiate invitational

It’s been a tough year for Tim Swanson and his University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks men’s golf team.

In April, the athletic director of UND Brian Faison announced that  baseball and men’s golf would be cut from the athletic department. Both athletic programs were given a certain amount of time to raise a set amount of money if they wanted to continue.

The men’s golf team raised the money they needed in order to compete this fall and spring. Not only did Swanson have his kids work in the community to raise money, but he also had to have his players get better on the golf course as well. It was a tough year, but the hard work paid off and the Hawks just wrapped up their fall portion of the schedule on Monday in Chicago, Ill.

The time off the course only made the Hawks stronger. Tim Swanson relied on a lot of his young players this season to make his team stronger. The two standouts so far have been freshman Patrick Traynor and sophomore Jordan Smith.

In his collegiate debut in early September in Nebraska, Traynor put together a good round. The Fargo  native shot a 151 (+7) for the two day total that led the team for the entire tournament. At their first team invite of the year UND finished tied for 16th.

That tournament wouldn’t be the only tournament the freshman was solid in. Traynor performed well on the course after he finished third by shooting even through three days at a tournament hosted by SIU Edwardsville.

Traynor’s even for the day was only the eighth time UND has had a golfer shoot even or better through 54-holes in the Division-I era.

Safe to say, the Hawks feel good about Traynor’s future, but they should be confident in sophomore Jordan Smith as well.

Smith has been consistent this season. In Illinois, the second tournament of the year, Smith finished tied for 54th individually. That effort by Smith helped pace the Hawks to an 11th place finish.

In their second to last tournament of the fall season, UND traveled to Iowa for the Zach Johnson Invitational. UND finished ninth overall.

In their final tournament of the fall semester this past weekend, UND, this time was paced by Jack McClintock who shot 230 (+17) through 54-holes.

As a team, UND finished the tournament at +87, landing them in 11th place. The tournament, hosted by Northern Illinois, was won by Big Ten Powerhouse Illinois. The Illini shot at seven under par for the tournament.

This fall semester wouldn’t have been possible without the University and head coach Tim Swanson realizes that.

“I would like to thank the University of North Dakota, UND Athletics, the UND Alumni Association & Foundation and the Fore UND Golf Campaign for helping the men’s golf program at UND.”

Hunter Plante is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]