John Augenstein Leads Men’s Golf to Victory in the Desert. Also Nearly Shoots 59.

You’re welcome, Commodore Nation! Last week, I could feel you trepidation of the unusually high scores from John Augenstein, the No. 1 golfer on the team, and one of the best college golfers in the land. So I wrote a little piece questioning if he had lost it. Maybe he was worn out after elite level play for so many months in a row.

Then he nearly shot 59 on Saturday.

Ol’ Tough Love Shawner got to him. Go ahead and leave in the mentions who you want me to target next. I’ll spread this tough love around. It’s undefeated already.

Vanderbilt blew the doors (pun intended! Sorry, not sorry!) off of the competition. CLANGA was second place by a whopping 24 shots. That’s largely due to the top four players shooting in the 60’s in the first round.

Auggie went lowest and posted 63 for collegiate best. Let’s take a look at the round.

He started on the 6th hole. So when I reference the hole, I’ll use it’s proper number, but when it’s in reference to how many holes he’s played, I’ll give it the sequential number.

He was level par thru two. Then he birdied No. 8, his third. Then No. 10. So he’s 2-under through five. NBD.

Then it happens. He goes on a tear that’s so prolific a friend retweeted that he was on 59 watch. For the non golf nuts out there 59 is the magical number in golf akin to throwing a perfect game in baseball or scoring 60 in basketball.

He birdied 11-16. That’s three par-4’s, two par-3’s, and two par-5’s. After 11 played, he’s 7-under. He still had seven left to play. He tacked on a birdie on his last hole, the 5th, and parred the rest, and frankly I’m a little disappointed. I mean, I don’t want to break out the tough love again, but I will if I have to.

Let’s take a look at his score compared to the field. (All stats thanks to Golfstat.com)

After the first round, he was five shots better than the cluster at T2, including two of his teammates, Harrison Ott and Reid Davenport.

He birdied the 4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, and 18th hardest holes. So he made hay on the easier holes and differentiated himself on the tougher holes, while not giving up strokes on the rest.

And to pull a Patrick Reed (no, not that), and say he left a few out there is true. He didn’t capitalize on the 12th toughest hole, a par-5. He was the third best scorer on par-5’s this weekend by two shots to his teammate Harrison Ott. However, Auggie led scoring on par-3’s and par-4’s with 2.83 and 3.73 respectively.

Maybe most interesting of this round was he didn’t make any eagles. Not one. He shot 63 with no eagles. In fact, he didn’t make an eagle all week. He just made an absolute pile of birdies. Nine to be exact.

Auggie will lead the Dores to the Valspar Collegiate in Florida next week. Then he’s off to the Masters. A lot more on that to come!