{"id":687573,"date":"2026-05-23T01:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/687573\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T01:42:09","slug":"lions-finished-the-first-day-at-the-national-golf-invitational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/687573\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions finished the first day at the National Golf Invitational"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        Story Links&#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<\/p>\n<p>MARICOPA, Az. (May 22, 2026) \u2013 The University of North Alabama men&#8217;s golf team closed their first team postseason tournament in 10th at four-over at the National Golf Invitational in Maricopa, Az.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>UNA was one of 10 teams selected to the tournament in the NGI&#8217;s fourth year of play. The Lions used four seniors in the five-man starting lineup in Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>North Alabama finished four-over for the morning round with 13 birdies finding the cup. Senior <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/sebastian-bengtsson\/3952\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3952\" target=\"_blank\">Sebastian Bengtsson<\/a> and senior <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/blake-henriques\/3955\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3955\" target=\"_blank\">Blake Henriques<\/a> led the team with even-par rounds through the first round; both finished in a tie for 28th.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This was redshirt-freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/luke-davis\/3953\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3953\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Davis&#8217;<\/a> second team start of the year after his start in the fall at the home event, the Turtle Point Invite; he finished tied for 49th.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Senior <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/xing-luo\/3956\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3956\" target=\"_blank\">Xing Luo<\/a> took a tie for 36th and finished his day on a heater with eight straight holes with either a par or birdie on the back nine. Senior <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/corey-maher\/3957\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3957\" target=\"_blank\">Corey Maher<\/a> finished tied for 43rd with a three-over day with two birdies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>SEC power Missouri led the field at 18-under with a total score of 270. The Tigers were one of seven teams to shoot under par for the first day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Grand Canyon (-17), Rhode Island (-14), Nevada (-14) and Mercer (-8) rounded out the top five of teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A little rusty today with how long ago conference was played with four seniors having graduated as well,&#8221; said The Schmitz Family Head Men&#8217;s Golf Coach Austin Phillips. &#8220;I know we will come back better tomorrow. Hopefully we have a big round in our future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>North Alabama continues play with redshirt freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/roarlions.com\/sports\/mens-golf\/roster\/luke-davis\/3953\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3953\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Davis<\/a> leading the way at 8:45 a.m. CT for the second round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For more information on North Alabama Athletics, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.roarlions.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.roarlions.com<\/a> and follow UNA Athletics on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/unaathletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UNAAthletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/una_athletics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Story Links&#13; &#13; MARICOPA, Az. (May 22, 2026) \u2013 The University of North Alabama men&#8217;s golf team&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-687573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}