#17/#14 Men’s golf and women’s golf set to host annual Claud Jacobs Invitational
Late February marks a special time for the UHV golf programs.
The Jaguars get to hit the course to open the spring half of their schedule and the UHV Claud Jacobs Invitational is always one of the first tournaments out of the gate.
UHV will open its 2025 spring schedule with the Claud Jacobs next Monday and Tuesday with the men competing at the Victoria Country Club and women teeing it up at The Club at Colony Creek.
"This first tournament is huge," said head coach Garrett Adair. "It's always big when we get to play at our home tournament between having familiarity of and comfortability with the courses, and knocking the rust off. But that's why we build a strong field on both sides. We might not always win it, but it's a good benchmark to see where we are.
"If we go out and win it against good teams like Texas Wesleyan, Ave Maria and teams like that, we know we're in good position going forward."
On the men's side, the 17th-ranked Jaguars are looking to build off the momentum they finished with in the fall.
UHV swept the team and individual titles of the UHV Fall Classic while tying or setting seven total records back in October.
Senior Joshua Van der Wath tied the all-time lowest round and set the all-time lowest second round mark by shooting a 65 on the final day of the tournament, going 66-65—131 to also set records for lowest 36-hole score and lowest tournament score to par (-12).
That helped propel the Johannesburg, South Africa, native to the No. 2 spot in the NAIA Individual rankings by Scoreboard powered by Clippd.
UHV boasts three men's golfers within the top 100 in the nation with Nathan Biais at No. 51 and Paul Chopin at No. 99.
"Now our men's team is at full force," Adair said. "We got Hugo Panos back and I'm excited to have guys from top to bottom push each other and get better. We had good qualifying this first week. So, any time you can have seven guys battling for those top five spots, that makes everybody better."
For the UHV women, last year's second-place finish at the Claud helped propel the Jaguars to a second-place finish at the conference tournament.
After having three golfers finish in the Top 15 at the Fall Classic, Adair is hopeful the women will continue to play strongly to open the spring.
This season, Emmily Bickelmann, Evelyn Nguyen and Madeline Pate have turned in Top 5 finishes for the Jaguars.
"We just want them to go out there and compete," Adair said. "We want them to compete for 36 holes, prove they belong and prove they can hang with these teams. Again, that's why we build a strong field that way, when we get later in the year and at conference, we're not intimidated. I'm just excited to see them go out there and compete."