LAKE WORTH, Fla. — The Ave Maria Men's Golf team wrapped up their 2025-26 campaign at the Sun Conference Championship at Fountains Country Club. The Gyrenes finished sixth out of eight teams, matching their performance at the 2025 conference championship.
Alex Veneziano led the team during the first round, finishing with three birdies and an even par score of 71. Daniel Nycum knocked in four birdies, the most on the team in the opening round, and finished the day at 3-over-par. Ty Kaufman finished third on the team at 7-over-par. Carding just one birdie in the round. Matt Mullen rounded out the group, sinking two birdies and finishing the round 8-over-par.
After 18 holes, Ave Maria was in sixth place with a team score of 18-over-par. They were eight strokes back of St. Thomas and Southeastern who were tied for fourth place and just one shot ahead of SCAD in seventh place.
The second on Monday had to dance around a mini monsoon in Central Florida, but all eight teams were able to finish their second set of 18 holes. The second round was especially good for the Gyrenes, who posted the second-lowest team score of the round.
Mullen took a huge step forward in the middle round, going from fourth on the team to first. The senior logged an eagle and five birdies, finishing the day 4-under-par. It was the second straight tournament with an eagle for Mullen. Joe Hamilton also had a big jump and found his way into the scorer's group for the first time. Hamilton finished even at 71 strokes while knocking down two birdies. Veneziano added three more birdies, finishing 2-over-par for the day. Kaufman rounded out the group with a 78 and knocked in two birdies.
With a team score of 5-over-par, the Gyrenes finished with the second lowest score in round two and the fifth lowest round of the whole tournament. Ave Maria jumped one spot on the team leaderboard, passing St. Thomas by one stroke for fifth place.
The third round was not so kind to the Gyrenes as they more than doubled their team score from the first two rounds.
Mullen led the way on Tuesday with his second eagle of the tournament and one birdie for a score of 6-over-par. Nycum got back into the scoring quartet as he matched Mullen's score of +6. Nycum did not log any birdies but was solid with 12 pars on the round. Veneziano added two more birdies to his tournament scorecard and finished third on the team at 7-over-par. Hamilton rounded out the group at 9-over-par. The senior carded his first eagle of the season on hole #3 and added two more birdies.
The Gyrenes finished the round with a team score of 28-over-par. St. Thomas finished three strokes ahead of them in the round to retake fifth place, sending the Gyrenes back to sixth place to end the tournament with a score of 51-over-par.
Keiser won the tournament, finishing even as a team over all three rounds.
Individually, Veneziano was the top performer for the Gyrenes, finishing tied for 11th place at 9-over-par. Mullen directly followed at 10-over-par, securing 17th place. Nycum finished in 26th place with a score of +17. Hamilton finished tied for 30th at 21-over-par. Kaufman shot 26 over and finished in 39th place.
