Men's Golf | 9/15/2024 6:05:00 PM

Utah Tech men's golf opens the 2024-25 fall season with two tournaments played in the state of Colorado. 
 
The Trailblazers begin the trip at the Colorado State Ram Masters Invitational this Tuesday and Wednesday. The two-day, 54-hole event will be played at the par-70, 7,218-yard Fort Collins Country Club. 
 
In addition to Utah Tech and the host Rams, the 16-team tournament field will feature fellow WAC member Utah Valley, along with Boise State, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Fullerton, Colorado, Denver, Idaho, Long Beach State, Northern Colorado, Rice, Sacramento State, Valparaiso, and Wyoming,

HEAD COACH BRAD SUTTERFIELD: Brad Sutterfield (BYU, 1994) begins his 13th season as head coach of the Utah Tech men's golf program. Last season, Sutterfield led the Trailblazers to six top-15 team finishes in 10 events, highlighted by a sixth-place finish at the 2024 WAC Championships.  
            In the 2018-19 campaign, Coach Sutterfield and the Trailblazers enjoyed arguably their most successful season in the program's four-year era, posting six top-five team finishes and 11 total top-10 showings in 12 total team events, highlighted by a wire-to-wire victory at the 2019 NCAA Division II Men's Golf South Central/West Regional Championships. Utah Tech also placed ninth-overall at the 2019 NCAA National Championships and recorded a runner-up finish in its debut at the RMAC Championships.
            In 2018, Sutterfield led Utah Tech to its third Pacific West Conference team title in four seasons, which earned him his second conference Coach of the Year award. The Trailblazers collected four tournament wins overall that season, along with seven-straight top-three team finishes and nine total top-10s in nine events overall.
            Under his direction, the program finished in the top-three overall in the PacWest in six seasons overall, including consecutive PacWest team titles in 2015 and 2016, and a runner-up finish in 2014, for which
Sutterfield was named conference Coach of the Year. Prior to his arrival at Utah Tech, Sutterfield, who played collegiately at BYU, played professional golf for 15 years as a member of the PGA Tour, European Tour, the Web.com Tour, Canadian Tour, Asian Tour and European Challenge Tour.
            Coach Sutterfield is joined on his staff by former Utah Tech standout player Spencer Wallace, who begins his first season as an assistant coach.

2024-25 TRAILBLAZER PREVIEW: The Trailblazers return five players from last year's squad that combined for two top-10 individual finishes overall in 10 events last season, and a sixth-place overall showing at the 2024 WAC Championships. 
            Junior Zac Felts is Utah Tech's top returner after he played in all 10 team events last season. He led the team in scoring with a 73.81 stroke average, along with 10 par or better rounds in 32 total loops.
            Sophomore KJ Ofahengaue joined Felts as the only other Trailblazer returnee who played in all 10 team events last year. Ofahengaue wound up third on the team with a 75.03 scoring average with four par of better rounds, highlighted by a collegiate career low 5-under 67 in the third round at the UC Santa Barbara Gaucho Inv'l (4/9/24). The sophomore also posted a t-seventh place finish at the 2024 WAC Championships (4/26-28). 
            Junior Maddox Vincent is back, a season after he was fourth on the team with a 75.93 stroke average in five events. Vincent recorded his third-career collegiate top-10 with a t-eighth place finish in the Air Force/Miranda Falcon Individual tournament (9/10-12), where closed with a 4-under 68.
            The Trailblazers also welcomed back sophomores Jackson Rhees (two events; 79.80 stroke average) and Carter Williams (three events; 77.67 stroke average), who both will look to become fixtures in the team's tourney line-ups this season. 
            Utah Tech also brought in a pair of Beehive State collegiate transfers in junior Tanner Telford from Utah and sophomore Ashton McArthur from Utah State. 
This year's Trailblazer squad is rounded out by four talented freshmen in Utah prep standouts Luke Schone from St. George area Pine View HS, and Cole Taylor from Farmington HS, along with a pair of international players in Frank Miao and William Tang from China.

UTAH TECH'S LINEUP AT CSU: Utah Tech will travel five players on its two-tournament trip to Colorado, with Ofahengaue, McArthur, Rhees, Telford and Felts all having qualified for the team competition.

2024 FALL TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE: Including the CSU Invite, Utah Tech will play in five falls events overall. The Trailblazers will stay in the "Centennial State" through the weekend as they will head south to the Colorado Springs to play in the 54^th-Annual Air Force Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational (Sept. 21-23).
            Utah Tech is also slated to tee it up next month at the Pacific/Visit Stockton Inv'l (Oct. 14-16), before closing the fall with a trip to the Islands for the Hawai'i Kapolei Invitational (Oct. 29-31). 
            Though the 2025 spring schedule has not been finalized, the 2025 Western Athletic Conference Championships will be played April 25-27, at Chapparal Pines in Payson, Ariz.