Men’s golf wins La Purisima College Invite

Toreros earn first tournament crown since 2014, Xu and Reiter both finish on podium

Eric Boose / Sports Editor

The University of San Diego men’s golf team entered the final round with a 12-shot lead and held on to win the La Purisima College Invite last Tuesday. The tournament featured four West Coast Conference teams: USD was joined by Saint Mary’s, Loyola Marymount, and BYU. San Diego came out on top of the pile, finishing with a team score of three under par, four shots better than second-place Saint Mary’s.

Newcomers Charlie Reiter and Andi Xu led the Toreros, each earning a place in the top three of the individual rankings. Reiter, a redshirt sophomore who transferred to San Diego from the University of Southern California, played tremendously over the first two rounds, shooting five under par on day one. 

“We had a practice round the day before, and Coach Riley and the guys, we all had a good game plan for how we wanted to attack the course in the first two rounds,” Reiter said. “I just played it to a tee, I guess you could say, played it exactly the way I wanted to.”

But Reiter struggled in the final round. He shot six over par, dropping him from first place to a tie for third, partly thanks to a two-stroke penalty for an infringement on the green.

“He made a mistake, he got a two-stroke penalty for not moving his marker back on the putting green,” Coach Riley said. “A player can ask you to move your mark because their ball might hit it on the putting green. If you don’t put it back when it’s your turn to put, then it’s a two-stroke penalty. He kind of blanked on that.”

Fortunately for Reiter and the Toreros, the rest of the field struggled in the third round as well. Only four out of the 32 golfers shot below par on the final day.

“They made the course a lot tougher, they tucked a lot of pins the last day, so it was a little tougher than the first few days, but it was still gettable,” Reiter said. “It was just a little harder to get closer to the pins, to get birdie opportunities.”

First year Andi Xu was one of the four to keep their third round under par, ensuring the Toreros kept their lead as a team, and earning himself second place. And while his team picked up a win, after almost blowing a big lead, Riley says there is still work to be done.

“Definitely didn’t play well the final round, but we played well enough to get the win,” Riley said. “I look back at it, and I’m kind of happy that we didn’t close them out and bury them by so many points. It’s hard to play with a big lead, and I think we’re going to take a lot of experience and learn from not playing well the last round.”

Riley added that Reiter handled his poor play on Tuesday well.

“He was more concerned about the team winning than himself, so that’s Charlie Reiter for you, he’s all about the team and helping the team,” Riley said. “He’ll bounce back, he told me he’s ready for the next one, which is in a couple weeks.”

That “next one” is scheduled for Nov. 5-6 — The Rustic Collegiate Classic, at Rustic Canyon Golf Course in Moorepark, California. It will serve not only as USD’s fall finale, but a chance to see how they measure up against Pepperdine — a WCC foe and the number one team in the nation last year. 

“It is a good test to see, now that we got one tournament that we won and played well, see if we can do that again and see how we match up against the best team in the country,” Reiter said. 

San Diego and Pepperdine will be joined by Saint Mary’s, LMU, and BYU at Rustic Canyon next week.