Ryan ChartrandGeoff Gonzalez was the only Cal Poly golfer to reach NCAA West Regional competition, where he tied for 53rd with his four-under-par total of 212.
And he’s a freshman.
“I really wanted the whole team to make it,” Gonzalez said. “At least someone made it from Poly.”
Gonzalez had no wins this season, but averaged 72.2 strokes and had eight top 10 finishes. He tied for fourth in the Big West Conference Championships, in which Cal Poly tied for second after winning the conference crown in 2006.
“(Gonzalez is) a very solid freshman, our No. 1 recruit to replace the hole in the lineup left by Travis Bertoni when he graduated,” Cal Poly head coach Scott Cartwright said.
Gonzalez, a Diablo native, has been playing golf since he was 4 years old, and competitively since middle school.
“I used to live in Southern California, and my grandfather just took me out on the golf course when I was little,” Gonzalez said.
The fall golf season starts before classes, and he joined the team’s roster on arrival.
“Scott (Cartwright) is awesome, he’s a great coach,” Gonzalez said. “Not too pushy, which is exactly what I need.”
However, he didn’t come to Cal Poly for golf alone.
“(I came) more for the people and the school,” he said. “I really like the school. We have a really good group of guys on the team.”
“It’s a very old lineup,” Cartwright said. “Sometimes freshmen can be intimidated, but it didn’t affect (Gonzalez) at all. He mixed in. (Next year) we’ll have to work on creating good chemistry between the 18-year-olds and the 22-year-olds.”
With eight seniors on the team, “we should have our strongest team next year,” Gonzalez said. “We definitely want to win Big West; that’s our No. 1 goal next year.”
Cartwright agreed.
“Our goals are to win the Big West Conference and go to the regional as a team,” he said.
The team missed winning a second consecutive conference title by three strokes this year.
With the new NCAA selection process that goes into effect next year, the team hopes to return to regionals as a team, Cartwright said, and Cal Poly hopes to have re-arranged its schedule to get into better position for the postseason.
“Personally, I want to get back to regionals, but I want the whole team to get there,” Gonzalez said.
With the season over, he is entering several individual tournaments over the summer “just to stay competitive.”
And with his free time, the business freshman is hoping to travel a little more, including road trips and going to Hawaii this summer, something he didn’t have time for during the year.
Looking to the future, he hopes to do something in business after graduation.
“But, if something happens where I have the opportunity to play professionally, I’ll probably give it a shot,” he said.