The UF club golf team’s first tournament was a hole in one.
The club, which began this semester, competed Sunday against schools such as Florida State University and University of Central Florida under the National Collegiate Club Golf Association.
“There’s eight individual awards you can win, and we won five of them, and we won the overall award,” said Brandon Harrold, a 20-year-old UF mechanical and aerospace engineering sophomore.
Harrold founded the club team with Laura Kanouse, his friend from high school, when they realized there was no venue at UF for them to pursue their shared passion for golf.
“Many tried before and failed, so Laura and I started it,” Harrold said.
Kanouse, a 20-year-old UF biomedical engineering sophomore, said she’s been competing in golf her whole life and thought UF needed a club team.
She said the competition this weekend went well, but her goal is to recruit more team members and compete in more tournaments.
“I was really proud of everyone that competed,” Kanouse said. “We won overall by nine shots.”
Jeremy Obordo, a 20-year-old UF pharmacy sophomore and member of the team, said this tournament was the club’s first chance to socialize as a team.
“We went out to dinner on the first night to get to know each other a little more,” Obordo said. “We get along really well.”
The club’s next tournament is the Ocala Nationals in April. If it wins that, the team will move on to the national competition in New Jersey.
“We’re really excited, but we’re not trying to get too ahead of ourselves,” Obordo said. “We don’t know that we’re going to (win), but we’re confident that we are.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 3/25/2014 under the headline "UF club golf team wins its first tournament"]
