HONOLULU — The University of Hawaii men’s golf team will host the 41st annual John A. Burns Intercollegiate at the Wailua Golf Course in Lihue. The tournament will be held at Wailua for the fourth-consecutive year and will run Wednesday
HONOLULU — The University of Hawaii men’s golf team will host the 41st annual John A. Burns Intercollegiate at the Wailua Golf Course in Lihue.
The tournament will be held at Wailua for the fourth-consecutive year and will run Wednesday through Friday.
The 18-team field features seven teams ranked in the Top 50, including five-time champion California, who had its reign of five-straight Burns titles snapped last year by Texas. Fourth-ranked Virginia is the highest-ranked team in the field, which also includes No. 18 Texas A&M, No. 23 UNLV and No. 25 Kennesaw State.
Making up the rest of the field are Arizona, No. 46 Brigham Young, Grand Canyon, UH, Hawaii-Hilo, No. 45 New Mexico, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Santa Clara, Utah, UTEP, No. 41 Washington and Washington State.
In addition to Cal, who captured the team title from 2011-15, previous Burns winners includes four-time champion UNLV (1991, ’98-99, 2010), three-time champions Arizona (1992, 2003-04) and BYU (1977, 2000, ’07), two-time champion New Mexico (2001, ’05) and Texas A&M (2009).
Wailua is a municipal course, which played host to three USGA National Public Links Championships and has a Top 10 rating by Golf Digest as one of the best courses in the state of Hawaii. It first played host to the John Burns Intercollegiate in 1978, the second year of the tournament.
Participants will play a total of 54 holes over the three-day tournament at the 6,991-yard, par-72 course, with an 8:30 a.m. shotgun each day.
Last season, Texas held off Cal for the title with a team score of 844, five strokes clear of the Golden Bears, who were looking to tie Oklahoma State for tourney record of six wins. Individually, four golfers finished at 6-under 210 and were declared co-champions. Among them was UH’s Skye Inakoshi, marking Hawaii’s first-ever medalist in tourney history.
The tournament will serve as a homecoming for UH golfers and Kauai residents Pono Tokioka and Bryden Salvador. Tokioka, a senior and Kauai High graduate, is coming off his best finish of the season with a 1-under 215 and tie for 45th at the Amer Ari Invitational two weeks ago, where UH placed 17th overall. Kapaa High graduate Salvador has competed in three tournaments during his sophomore season.
