Oct. 5, 2007

The Santa Clara men's golf team heads to Cal this coming week to participate in the Alister Mackenzie Invitational. So far this year the team has placed 9th and 5th in the tournaments they've played and have been within striking distance of the lead each time going into the final round.

The Broncos are finishing up qualifying this weekend to find out which players will be playing in the tournament. So far this year, seven players on the nine man team have participated in the two events.

"It's hard to predict who will step in and in any one tournament, any one of the nine guys have a chance to qualify," said head coach Rob Miller. "It's really a matter of who is playing well that week and putting the guys in there that are hot."

One Bronco that will not be playing for a while is sophomore Alex Bon, who played in both tournaments this year and was the team's top finisher in the first event of the year. Bon just recently had arthroscopic surgery on his knee after injuring it this week.

"Alex should be back practicing in a couple of weeks and playing golf in about six weeks and his knee should be in better shape than it was a week ago," said Miller. "It's a little bit of a minor setback for Alex because he had been playing well and had worked hard on his game over the summer and came into this year really ready to play."

So far this year, the Broncos are looking to improve upon two things: finish better in the final round and keep all the scores consistent. "We need all the guys to keep working hard all tournament and make sure the scores don't get too high near the bottom end," said Miller. "If we have four scorers around par or below 75, we'll have team scores that are going to be near the top at most tournaments."

The Alister Mackenzie will prove to be one of the toughest tests of the year so far for the team with the competition that will be there. The team tees off Monday morning, October 8th for two rounds, and then the final round on Tuesday.