The Mocs are headed home, then they’re headed their separate ways.
Instead of competing in the NCAA championship at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s golf season is over.
The Mocs needed to finish in the top five in order to play for a national championship in their back yard, but they stumbled in the first round and never recovered.
UTC finished 12th at the Southwest Regional at Carlton Oaks Golf Club outside San Diego on Saturday.
“I knew how special it was going to be to have the championship at The Honors Course, and it’s tough not being there,” coach Mark Guhne said over the phone. “It’s going to be a really tough week. We’ve missed out on the championship in the past and those were rough weeks.
“This is going to be even tougher. We kind of feel like we let people down.”
Oregon captured the Southwest Regional team title at 6 over, and Augusta State was second at 16 over for the three days. Tennessee, UNLV and Cal tied at 22 over to claim the last three spots and tickets to Ooltewah.
“I can’t really put my finger on what it was other than we’ve been inconsistent all year,” Guhne said. “We’ve either played really well or we struggled. And this was a week we struggled.
“I don’t think it was the course, I think it was us. We never got any momentum going.”
The Mocs entered as the seventh seed and shot 48 over for the tournament, including a final-round 21 over, knowing from the first tee that they had little hope of joyous homecoming.
“I’m very disappointed and I can’t really express how disappointed I am that we didn’t make it through to the finals,” senior Derek Rende said. “Nobody really played well, nobody got the job done, and personally, my putting really let me down.”
Freshman Steven Fox tied for 21st at 7 over. Sophomore Stephan Jaeger tied for 49th with Rende and others at 12 over. Senior Fredrik Qvicker shot 18 over, and senior J.T. Clendenin shot 32 over in his final tournament as a collegiate athlete.
Fox and Rende had the best rounds of the bunch on Saturday when they shot 76, and Fox’s 72 on Friday was UTC’s best score of the weekend.
Former Hixson High golfer and Southern Mississippi senior Paul Apyan closed his college career in a tie for 39 in San Diego.
His only chance of advancing was finishing as the top individual not on a team advancing. That honor went to medalist Nick Delio of Cal-State Northridge who shot 3 under.
“It was really hard for Fox and Jaeger to really finish the round, and we tried to coach them and get them in,” Guhne said, with a dejected tone in his voice and knowing that he’ll attend the championship, but also knowing, he won’t be coaching in it this year.
“When you know you’re not going to advance,” he said, “and you know your season is over, it’s really hard to play golf.”