Often times building up the lead isn’t the hard part. The most difficult task is holding on.
ASU junior Jesper Kennegard was unable to turn a lead after 54 holes at the Pac-10 Championships into a conference title on Wednesday, as a pair of mishaps on the par-4 18th at Karsten Golf Course proved to be the difference.
Kennegard finished in second place at 15-under, one stroke behind Cal junior Eric Mina.
He would have won the title if not for a disastrous final hole. Against a stiff wind on 18, one of the toughest holes on the course, Kennegard’s tee shot flew into the lake that guards the left side of the fairway.
After a drop, the Sweden native put his approach shot within six feet, giving him a chance to save bogey. But Kennegard was unable to convert the short putt.
His double-bogey gave Mina a four-shot lead heading into the ninth hole, which was his final hole of the tournament due to a shotgun start.
Mina nearly blew the title with a triple-bogey, but it was just enough to hold on.
As a team, ASU had its worst round of the tournament on Wednesday (10-over 365) and slipped to a fourth-place finish after sitting in second following the first 36 holes and third after Round 3.
Washington stormed through the course on the final day to surpass leader Stanford and collect its second straight Pac-10 Championship.
“We had some discussion that the first round had always been a killer for us and our focus was starting out quickly, which we did [by] shooting 18-under,” ASU coach Randy Lein said. “We put ourselves in a position with a legitimate chance to win … We just didn’t make a lot of birdies early on [in the final round], and then we started to but we gave the birdies we got back on [holes] 16 and 18.”
The only other ASU golfer to finish in the top 10 was senior Knut Borsheim, who tied for 10th with one of his better performances of the season, an 8-under 276 (69-70-66-71).
Borsheim was stung by a sudden gust of wind during his approach shot on 18 that carried his ball into the water, finishing the hole with a double-bogey that prevented a higher climb up the leaderboard.
“He hit a great iron on his approach, but right after he hit it, the wind picked up considerably,” Lein said. “He came up short, which is too bad because he hit a good shot. He doubled, and that’s not the way he wanted to finish, but he played very well. It was nice to see him and Jesper have a good week. We just have to get the other guys playing. We have a few weeks now before [NCAA] regionals.”
Senior Braxton Marquez tied for 28th at even-par 284 (68-72-71-72), junior Scott Pinckney tied for 36th with a 2-over 286 (68-71-73-74), junior James Byrne shot a 6-over 290 (69-72-71-78) to tie for 42nd and sophomore Spencer Fletcher notched a 14-over 298 (77-73-74-74) to tie for 56th.
ASU will learn its NCAA Regional seeding a week from Monday.
Until then, Lein said, “it’s time to put the clubs away for a while, hit the books hard and finish up [the semester] strong. Hopefully the stars will align and we’ll play up to what I think we can do at nationals.”
Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu
