Michael Thorbjornsen missed almost half a year because of a back injury, including not being able to compete in the U.S. Amateur and the Walker Cup last summer.
He returned this spring for Stanford, and it was a struggle in his first start, a T-71 at the Amer Ari. Then he looked more like the Thor college golf fans have come to know with a T-17 finish at The Prestige.
It’s his latest victory that’s proves he’s back.
Thorbjornsen won the Cabo Collegiate on Tuesday at Twin Dolphin Club in Mexico. He shot 10-under 203 for the victory, beating Ole Miss’ Michael La Sasso by a shot for the title. La Sasso shot 7 under in the final round, including a 5-under mark over his last five holes, to finish runner-up.
Stanford’s Michael Thorbjornsen at the 2024 Cabo Collegiate. (Photo: Stanford Athletics)
Meanwhile, for Thorbjornsen, the victory earned him a sponsor exemption into the PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Championship, set for Nov. 7-10 at El Cardonal at Diamante in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
It’s also an important win in terms of the PGA Tour University standings. Last week, for the first time since the Class of 2024 rankings were released, Thorbjornsen lost his top position to Georgia Tech’s Christo Lamprecht. Now, it’s likely Thorbjornsen slides back into the top spot with only a couple of months left in the season.
The player atop the PGA Tour U standings at the end of the year will earn a PGA Tour card. Nos. 2-5 in the standings will get Korn Ferry Tour status.
Arizona State (19 under) won the team competition by nine shots, bouncing back from its 14th-place finish last week. Texas Tech (10 under) and Arkansas (2 under) were the only other teams to finish under par. Defending champion Vanderbilt placed fourth at 1 over.
ASU’s Preston Summerhays finished third at 8 under while Wenyi Ding and Josele Ballester tied for 10th at 3 under.
No. 10 Tennessee men’s golf finishes sixth at Cabo Collegiate.
No. 10 Tennessee finished in sixth place at the Cabo Collegiate.
The tournament took place Feb. 27-March 1 at Cabo Del Sol Golf Club in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tennessee’s men’s golf team will compete next in the National Invitational Tournament. Tuscon National will host the tournament March 18-19 in Tucson, Arizona.
Oklahoma, which completed the three-day event at 4 under, finished a stroke ahead of Florida State and three in front of Texas A&M.
SAN ANTONIO — There’s not one, but if they gave out an award for fortitude at the collegiate golf level, Oklahoma’s Garett Reband would be a shoo-in.
During the final round of the 11th Annual Cabo Collegiate, Reband held a two-stroke lead, needing only to close out on the back nine to earn an automatic PGA Tour exemption into April’s Valero Texas Open.
While he played well, Reband burned the edges on a few putts and saw Texas A&M’s Sam Bennett pass him with a birdie on the 17th hole. Knowing he needed to make up a stroke, Reband put everything into his drive on the par-5 18th at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course, and pulled his ball left into an unplayable lie.
For Oklahoma coach Ryan Hybl, that’s where Reband’s story of courage starts.
Reband had to set aside a missed opportunity to play on the PGA Tour and focus on the task at hand — the Sooners needed him to finish strong to take the prestigious team title, and likely maintain their stranglehold on the top spot in the Golfweek/Sagarin team rankings.
The senior from Fort Worth, Texas, swallowed his pride, knocked a ball back in the middle of the fairway, stuck his approach and buried a five-footer to give the Sooners the team title.
Oklahoma, which completed the three-day event at 4 under, finished a stroke ahead of Florida State and three in front of Texas A&M.
Hybl was thrilled to see his senior star’s selfless attitude after a devastating blow.
“I’m so happy and excited or his finish. He wasn’t in a great spot and had to take an unplayable. No matter how you cut it, he did that for our golf team. And we ended up winning by a shot,” Hybl said. “I know he wanted to win the golf tournament as well or the PGA Tour start, but it’s a huge thing for him to not give one away at the very end. I’m excited for him.”
OU had three players finish in the top 10, impressive considering the event’s stacked field. Reband’s 68 on Wednesday put him at 4 under for the event while Jonathan Brightwell (-2) finished tied for fifth and Patrick Welch was ninth. Oklahoma State finished sixth with Austin Eckroat (T-5) leading the way for the Cowboys.
“We played really, really well in the first round, The conditions were about as tough as you’d find. Our guys came out here and shot under par, and that really helped,” Hybl said of the Sooners. “We didn’t finish as well as maybe we would have liked, but overall, heck when you can come win a tournament like that with a stacked field on a big-time golf course, that’s special.”
Hybl’s team had just one other start under its belt this spring, a third-place finish at the Seminole Intercollegiate in Tallahassee on February 19th. This event, which was forced away from its typical Cabo San Lucas home due to COVID, was just what the Sooners needed as the season ramps up.
“This is a confidence booster for us. We’re trying to figure out where all of our guys are at. Heck, we’ve been in ice and snow for the last month. It’s just nice to get down here, get some great weather on a great golf course, and try to figure out how to keep getting better,” Hybl said.
“The beautiful thing is a couple of my guys didn’t play great this week and they’ll be really irritated, but we’ll all get back together and go to work.”
Thanks to a birdie on the 17th hole, Bennett won the biggest tournament of his life, earning a spot in the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open.
SAN ANTONIO — The joke goes that the golf course Texas A&M star Sam Bennett grew up playing in the tiny town of Madisonville, Texas, is nothing but a cow pasture.
Or as one family friend following and rooting for Bennett during Wednesday’s final round of the Cabo Collegiate at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course insisted, “that might be giving cow pastures a bad name.”
Bennett need not worry about the conditions of the courses he’s playing these days. Thanks to a huge birdie on the 17th hole of the third and final round, the junior won the biggest tournament of his life, and with it he’ll earn an exemption into next month’s Texas Valero Open on the PGA Tour.
Bennett smiled and shook hands after holding off Oklahoma’s Garett Reband, using smart play on the back nine to finish with a 67 to earn the Tour bid. He finished the three-day event, which boasted one of the strongest fields of the year, at 5 under.
“I’ll see you guys again in a few weeks,” he said with a smile.
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Bennett said the chance to strut his stuff with the world’s best is an incredible opportunity.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said. “Ever since the day I was born, I’ve been wanting to play in a PGA Tour event.”
But unlike some of the others in attendance, Bennett’s past has some rural Texas flavor. The town he grew up in is well-known, but only for having a Buc-ee’s — a massive gas station/convenience store that has multiple locations throughout the state, usually midway between major cities.
Bennett’s town sits about 100 miles north of Houston and 150 southeast of Dallas, and has fewer than 5,000 residents, not to mention a lack of quality golf facilities.
“I grew up on a nine-hole course,” Bennett said. “You’re hitting off dirt, putting everything in the back of your stance. It was tough. Luckily that’s where I was able to learn the game.”
And the learning process continues. In fact, Bennett’s most recent lesson came at the 2021 Border Olympics in Laredo, Texas, just a week ago. Bennett led the event after two rounds, but a 76 on the final day dropped him out of contention. Interim Texas A&M head coach Brian Kortan said Bennett was itching to get another chance after letting that one slip away. His teammate, Dan Erickson, won the tournament and was subsequently named Golfweek’s Men’s College Golf Player of the Week.
“Sam had a chance to win that golf tournament and just made mistake after mistake. But he knew it,” Kortan said. “And he learned from it. I don’t think without that experience you’d have this one.”
Sam Bennett of Texas A&M fired a 67 in the final round to win the Cabo Collegiate and earn an exemption to the Valero Texas Open. (Photo: Darren Carroll/Cabo Collegiate)
Determined to avoid another blunder, Bennett lagged behind his group on two key holes in the late going — smartly laying up on the par-5 14th hole and then making a wise shot on the risk/reward No. 17 that proved to be the deciding hole.
“I was talking with coach on the par 5. I was a little too far to get there and I’d been hitting it good all day,” Bennett said. “My wedge game is my strength. Hitting a 3-wood 270 is not it.”
But don’t be fooled by Bennett’s course management. Kortan said it’s unfair to take Bennett’s heady play as a sign of passivity.
“That guy is ultra-competitive,” Kortan said. “He played all kinds of sports growing up and didn’t like to lose in any of them. He’s had a few chances to win on the bigger stages and hasn’t come through.
“But he’s learned. He’s matured. And today he handled himself great.”
Arizona State won the Cabo Collegiate on Tuesday after battling back in the third round.
The Cabo Collegiate is circled heavily on the Arizona State calendar.
The tournament, now in its 10th year, introduces the Sun Devils to teams from areas outside Pac-12 country – teams they may not otherwise compete against.
“Every year we build our schedule around this event,” Arizona State head coach Matt Thurmond said. “Our guys get up for it.”
It was about this time a year ago that Arizona State began to turn around its season. The Sun Devils finished runner-up four times in their first five starts last year, but finally got over the hump in February with a three-shot win over Texas A&M at the John Burns Intercollegiate in Hawaii.
Arizona State showed up in Cabo the next month to go toe-to-toe with Oklahoma State, a team that still had Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland in the lineup. It was like the two teams were playing another tournament. Oklahoma State won at 32 under with Arizona State second at 24 under. The next-best team was 15 shots back.
“The last two years, we had a chance to win and Oklahoma State beat us both times,” Thurmond said. “We are so excited to finally hold the trophy.”
The Cabo Collegiate is Arizona State’s third victory so far this season after winning its first two tournaments out of the gate this fall. The Sun Devils are ranked No. 9 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings.
Remarkably, Arizona State counted three rounds of 68 on the final day at Cove Club at Cabo Del Sol in Cabo from David Puig, Cameron Sisk and Ryggs Johnston. Masen Andersen added the fourth counting Sun Devil score, a 1-under 70.
“That round today was beyond what I could have expected,” Thurmond said.
The Sun Devils, who were in third place through 36 holes, made an early move as Puig logged four birdies in his first six holes and Sisk was 3 under through two holes with a birdie-eagle start. Arizona State finished the week at 20 under as a team, which was eight shots better than runner-up Texas A&M.
“It was huge for our team to have a couple of hot starts,” Sisk said. “It put us in a good position for the rest of the round. I didn’t really know where we were, but I knew it was a big boost for our team and me individually.”
ROAD TO GRAYHAWK BLOG: We are counting down to the NCAA Championships in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Note that Arizona State competed this week without its top-ranked player. Senior Chun-An Yu, ranked No. 51 by Golfweek, is in Orlando preparing to tee it up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational as an amateur this week.
“We are missing our top player Kevin Yu and we are better with him of course,” Thurmond said. “But it was a special challenge for us. These are the guys who maybe people don’t know as much. They wanted to make sure they did their part.”
Runner-up Texas A&M climbed six places on the strength of medalist Walker Lee’s 7-under 64 and Dan Erickson’s 69. The Aggies posted a third-round 278 (6 under) and a 54-hole total of 840.
