Boneta Claims First Collegiate Title in Three-Way Tie
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Sophomore Albert Boneta of The University of New Mexico men’s golf team earned his first collegiate victory on Sunday at the Thunderbird Collegiate after a career-best final score of -12 following a 65 in round one and a 66 in round three.
Boneta led the Lobos with a final score of 201, finishing in a three-way tie with Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech and Blake Tomlinson of Utah.
The sophomore led the Lobos to eighth place in a highly-competitive field that featured eight teams ranked in the top 35 in the nation. UNM finished with a final score of 835 (-17) which was just six strokes out of fifth place.
Boneta entered Saturday with just one hole left in round two and tied for ninth place overall. He finished the final hole with a par and then came out of the back nine even in round three. It was on the front nine that he made up ground with five birdies to finish -5 in the final round.
Boneta finished tied for third in par-3 scoring (2.92, -1), tied for seventh in par-4 scoring (3.82, -6) and tied for 11th overall in par-5 scoring (4.44, -5). He also tied for fifth in total birdies with 16.
Junior Sam Choi was the second-highest Lobo on the leaderboard and also finished in the top 20 of the field. Choi tied for 16th overall with a final score of 207 (-6) after posting a 69 in round one, a 67 in round two and a 71 in round three.
Freshmen Bastien Amat and Matthew Watkins tied with a score of 215 (+2). Both shot a 69 in the third round to make up some ground.
Watkins also registered UNM’s only eagle on the tournament, on hole #1 in the third round. It marks the first of his career as the Thunderbird marks his collegiate debut.
Junior Brandon Shong rounded out the Lobo scoring effort with a 73 in the final round after shooting a 72 and 75 in rounds one and two, respectively. He tied Amat for sixth in pars with 38 on the weekend.
As a team, the Lobos finished second overall in pars (176) and fifth in par-5 scoring (4.51, -22) while accumulating 51 birdies.
New Mexico has just one regular-season competition left before taking on the 2021 Mountain West Tournament. The Lobos will head to the PING Cougar Classic on April 23-24 hosted by BYU at the Riverside Country Club in Provo, Utah.