SALT LAKE CITY – On April 28, the University of Utah men’s golf team will be in Stanford, Calif., teeing off at the Stanford Golf Course at the 2023 Pac-12 Men’s Golf Championship. The Utes will be aiming to capture the program’s second conference championship and they’ll be competing in a field that includes several ranked teams, including the defending conference champion Washington Huskies.
25 years ago, the Utes faced a similar challenge as they prepared for the 1988 Western Athletic Conference Championship in Provo, Utah. Prior to that year, Utah had never finished higher than third at the conference tournament and they were in a field that included the back-to-back defending champions from BYU, who were playing on their home course, where they’d scored an overwhelming victory just a week earlier.
Over three days, coach Ron Branca’s team never relinquished the lead and the Utes stunned their opponents to take home the program’s first league title. Led by the tournament’s individual champion, Matt Johnson, who was one of four Utes to place inside the top 10, Utah accomplished a feat that only they believed they could achieve. Even after 25 years, the memories of that accomplishment and everything that led up to it are still fresh in the minds of those who played a part in it.
The Utes entered the 1987-88 campaign off a season that concluded with a fourth-place finish at the WAC Championship, but the good news for coach Branca was he kept his team intact heading into a new year. The list of players who made up that roster included Blair Philip, a senior who came to Utah after BYU coach Karl Tucker recommended him to Branca. The group also consisted of former all-conference first-team pick Devin Dehlin, juniors Eric Nielsen and Matt Johnson and sophomore Doug Roberts. These returners were focused on improving on their team’s standing in 1987-88.
“I think we were all determined to do better than the year before,” said Roberts, “because we all knew we had a good core group of guys. We knew that we were capable of more. I know coach Branca probably set down some season goals for us, but it was more individually, us just talking to each other saying, hey, we got a good group here, let’s do better.”
Even with that mentality, winning the WAC and knocking the Cougars off their throne was a goal that might’ve…
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