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Trasamar improves swing, leads team to last fall tournament

Jon Trasamar has improved his golf game throughout the fall season.
Minnesotas Jon Trasamar plays Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013, at the Edina Country Club.
Image by Amanda Snyder, Daily File Photo
Minnesota’s Jon Trasamar plays Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013, at the Edina Country Club.

Jon Trasamar struggled to find his swing over the first half of the Gophers’ fall season.

Now, he appears to have it back.

The senior on the Gophers men’s golf team shot an average of 12-over par through the first three tournaments of the fall season.

In the past two events, however, he’s averaged a score of 2.5-under par.

“My play was a little disappointing from a result perspective,” Trasamar said. “We all had expectations coming in from the summer. So it would have been nice to get off to a better start.”

He said finishing tournaments was his biggest weakness through the first half of the season. Head coach John Carlson has stressed finishing strong at tournaments for most of the season, Trasamar said.

It clicked for him at the Barnabas Health Intercollegiate last week.

He shot 7-under par during the final nine holes and finished second overall in the individual standings. His performance also helped lead the Gophers to their first tournament title since the 2006-07 season.

“It was tremendous for our program to get our first win in seven years,” Carlson said. “Jon finished it off for our team, really.”

As Trasamar has improved, so has the rest of the team, Carlson said.

Trasamar agreed and pointed out how the rest of the team also finished strong at the end of that meet.

“We all had it going there on the back nine,” he said. “That last round was pretty fun.”

The Gophers will face a much tougher challenge this weekend in the Wendy’s Kiawah Classic at Turtle Point Golf Club in Kiawah Island, S.C.

Minnesota ranked at least 50 spots higher than any of its opponents at the Barnabas Health Intercollegiate, Carlson said.

This time, he said, his team will contend with two teams ranked higher than it, including No. 29 South Carolina.

Trasamar said he’s looking to carry momentum from his strong finish two weeks ago into this upcoming tournament.

“We’ve set ourselves in a good position to go up in the rankings,” he said. “We have a good chance here to finish up the fall with hopefully another victory.”

Carlson said he’s seen a lot of improvement on his team in the fall season, especially compared to last season. At this point last year, the Gophers were ranked 122nd in the county, he said. This year, they’ve jumped to 54th.

And Trasamar said the team could get even better once the spring season begins.

“We’ve done a good job of beating the teams we should beat this fall,” he said. “The next step is to take down some of the better teams in the country.”

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