Utah Golf Vaults into First Place After Round Two at The Goodwin

SAN FRANCISCO – Led by a 4-under 66 from Braxton Watts, the University of Utah men’s golf team soared up the rankings and into first place at the conclusion of round two of The Goodwin, which took place on Friday at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco on Monday.
 
“Our team was fantastic today,” said coach Garrett Clegg. The conditions were brutal for our first nine holes and the guys were awesome! Then the rain stopped and we just had to battle wind and the boys hit great shot after great shot. Braxton’s round was amazing. He made so many great birdies today.  Now we need to be ready for a battle tomorrow. It is great to be in contention again.”
 
As a team, the Utes finished the first two rounds alone atop the leaderboard with a team total of 1-under on the day and 3-over for the tournament. Only one team carded a better round two score than Utah and the Utes passed seven teams to climb into the No. 1 spot, including No. 7 Tennessee, No. 15 Georgia Tech and No. 23 Georgia. Utah’s 279 also matches their third-best 18-hole score of the 2023-24 campaign.
 
Watts entered Friday in 28th and leapt 26 slots after shooting 4-under, the second-best round of play for any competitor in round two. The junior from Utah started the day with a pair of bogeys in the first three holes and was lights out for the rest of the day. He recorded his first birdie on the par-4 13th and finished the back nine with consecutive red scores. The junior put up his third consecutive birdie on the first hole of the front nine and later finished with three additional birds to post the lowest score of his collegiate career. Watts racked up seven birdies on the day to finish in sole possession of second place.
 
Sergio Jimenez started the round with a birdie on his first hole and the freshman would tally seven pars to finish even through the back nine. He rebounded from a difficult start to the front nine before picking up his second birdie on the par-4 7th to finish strong at 1-over for the day. The native of Madrid, Spain climbed nine spots and finished the first two rounds tied for 36th at 3-over.
 
Gabriel Palacios followed a similar path to also grab a share of 36th and jump nine spots with a tournament score of 3-over. Palacios capped the back nine 1-over, including a stretch of eight straight pars. He concluded his day with a trio of…