The University of Hawai’i men’s golf team is set to start its spring season at the 35th Amer Ari Intercollegiate, which will take place from February 5 to February 7 at the Mauna Lani Resort Golf Club on the Kohala Coast. The event is co-hosted by the Rainbow Warriors and Hawai’i-Hilo and is recognized as one of the leading collegiate tournaments in the United States.
This year’s tournament features a strong field, including nine teams ranked among the Top 25 nationally. Oklahoma State, ranked No. 8, returns as both last year’s winner and defending NCAA champion. Other highly ranked teams include No. 4 Auburn, No. 6 Texas, and No. 7 Arizona State, along with North Carolina (No. 14), Pepperdine (No. 15), Texas Tech (No. 16), Georgia Tech (No. 18), and UCLA (No. 21). Additional participants are Oregon, Oregon State, Osaka Gakiun from Japan, Pacific, San Jose State, Stanford (No. 35), UC Davis, UT Arlington, and Washington (No. 41).
A total of twenty teams are competing this year, with twenty-nine previous Amer Ari championship teams represented in the field. Oklahoma State has won ten titles at this event while Georgia Tech has claimed seven.
Individually, several top-ranked players are expected to compete: Pepperdine’s Mahanth Chirravuri (ranked third nationally), Oklahoma State’s Ethan Fang (fourth), Utah’s Gabriel Palacios—last year’s medalist—(fifth), Texas Tech’s Connor Graham (sixth), Auburn’s Josiah Gilbert (ninth), and Texas Tech’s Adam Bresnu (tenth).
For a third consecutive year, the tournament will be played at Mauna Lani Resort after three years at Hāpuna Golf Course in Waimea. The format consists of three days of play over fifty-four holes on a par-72 North Course measuring 6,913 yards; each day begins with a shotgun start at 7:30 a.m.
Hawai’i enters its fourth event of the season ranked No.146 nationally with an adjusted scoring average of 288.7 per round. Team leader Anson Cabello holds a scoring average of 70.33 and leads with eight rounds of par or better this season; he recently competed in his first PGA Tour event at the Sony Open in Hawai’i.
Last year in this tournament, Hawai’i finished sixteenth overall with Josh Hayashida leading individual scores for the team.
The Amer Ari Intercollegiate began in 1991 as the Taylor Made Big Island Intercollegiate before being renamed in honor of a longtime UH-Hilo supporter in 2010.
Live scoring for the tournament can be followed online at www.scoreboard.clippd.com.
