After a long summer away from the course, the Idaho Vandals’ men’s golf team returned to the green this week in their first tournament of the 2025 fall season. Luckily for head coach David Nuhn and his squad, they didn’t have to travel too far for this tournament.
After a nine-mile drive headed westbound on Highway 8, Idaho participated in the Palouse Collegiate, a tournament hosted by Washington State University in Pullman. Out of 12 participating teams, Idaho, led by a strong performance from senior Josh McCartain, finished in eighth place.
Washington State started its fall campaign off on the right foot, winning the tournament and finishing six strokes better than the second-place team, Santa Clara. Colorado, Boise State, San Jose State and Oregon State all finished above Idaho, while Seattle, Eastern Washington, Fresno State and SIU Edwardsville filled out the bottom of the standings.
Not including the individual performers, there were 75 participants in the tournament. McCartain, who finished the tournament at 10-under, tied for fifth place among all the participants. His best performance came in the second round, where he finished six-under 65.
Graduate student Dalton Dean finished at six-under and tied for 15th place. Similar to McCartain, Dean had his best showing in the second round. During that round, he had a stretch of seven birdies in eight holes. Joe Sykes and Henrik Koglin both finished four-over, which was tied for 53rd. Samuel Johnson finished 57th, including going one-under 70 in the second round.
Idaho also had a few individual performers, including Charley Simpson. Simpson had the third-best round out of all the Vandal golfers, finishing five-under 66 in the second round, which led him to a three-under finish at the tournament, good for 28th place. Ben Buchanan took 66th place, Aaron Mohun came in 75th and Carter Frisby came in 81st.
Overall, Idaho finished 11-under in the tournament. Their next appearance will be on Sept. 20 at the Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational in Colorado Springs, hosted by Air Force University.
Liam Bradford can be reached at [email protected].