Our first annual College Day Tournament was a rousing success! The initial iteration of this tournament began as the Mentor-Junior Tournament, where we would have participants pair with Stanford University players or our own volunteer coaches. This year both the Stanford AND Santa Clara University Men’s and Women’s teams joined us at Rancho del Pueblo, which allowed every participant to pair with a college player. Additionally, a new component of the tournament was added in the form of a post round reception, educating our students and their families on the college process. At the conclusion of the tournament FTSV participants and families were able to ask questions about college to not just the college golfers, but also to our very own volunteer coaches, Matthew Faulkner (SJSU professor) and Tracy Cone (former ASU golf NCAA champion). At FTSV we coach A.L.R, which stands for ask open-ended questions, listen, and respond, and we also teach the concept of building a go-to-team. Both were prominently being exhibited by all! The conversations continued as pizza was served and awards were given out.
The format for the tournament itself was a two-person alternate shot between a FTSV participant and their college golf partner, with the added twist that each of our participants teed off on even number holes and each college golfer teed off on odd number holes. In addition to our standard Long Drive and Closest to the Pin competitions, we had a Color Wheel minigame between Holes 7 & 8 where participants could potentially save a stroke off their score for hitting the appropriate color on the parachute. A definitive highlight of the day was Hole #1, where each participant rolled a die and based on the result the college golfer had to perform a certain action during their golf shot. We saw shots off of knees, one leg, and even using a nerf bow and arrow instead of a club!
We had some serious golf being played out there and each level was extremely tight score-wise. In fact, each level had a tie for 2nd place! Here are the results for each level of the tournament, and congrats to all of our top finishers:
Birdie:
- Andrew Leong (Baylands) & Joey Hayden (SCU Men’s)
- Jesse Jang (Gavilan) & Jack Morrison (SCU Men’s)
- Vincent Vo (Rancho) & Carson Kawasoe (SCU Men’s)
Eagle:
- Kristen Tang (Rancho) & Audrey Brust (SCU Women’s)
- David Harrigan (Gavilan) & Michael Thorbjornsen (Stanford Men’s)
- Jayden Aguinaga (Rancho) & Karl Vilips (Stanford Men’s)
Ace:
- Joey Jang (Gavilan) & Ethan Ng (Stanford Men’s)
- Joshua Jang (Gavilan) & Nate Menon (Stanford Men’s)
- Norah Yang (Rancho) & Inara Sharma (SCU Women’s)
Special thanks to Santa Clara University coach Andrew Larkin and Stanford team captains Ethan Ng and Nate Menon for helping to put the College Day tournament together! Both teams were fantastic with our participants, helped them feel at ease, and made the tournament an unforgettable experience. Thank you Stanford and Santa Clara players! Also, thank you to our volunteers Matthew Faulkner and Tracy Cone for coming and discussing college-related topics with our participants, as well as our volunteer coaches Alex and Stefan for helping run the tournament! Lastly, thank you to Coach Robby who coordinated and lead the event! We are grateful to have Robby in the program and leading our pre-season tournaments.
Join us!
Our next pre-season tournament is on February 25th. If you are interested in learning more about our opportunities and tournaments, please visit our youth opportunities page, email us at [email protected], or call 408-508-4880. We hope to see you at the next tournament in February!
