The Iowa State Men’s Golf team played in the Arizona Intercollegiate at Sewailo Golf Club in Tuscon, Arizona.  The team finished ninth with Nick and his fellow team member, Ruben Sondjaja finishing tied for 19th.  Nick posted an even par 71 in the final round and played the final 36 holes at 1 over.  His final round featured an eagle on the par 4 twelfth hole.

In Nick’s own words…

We started our campaign at the Sewailo Golf Club for the Arizona Intercollegiate, hosted by Arizona. The guys were all fizzing to get started especially after the inclusion of Denzel Ieremia into our program. Denzel is from Hamilton, New Zealand and has had a successful amateur career to date with New Zealand Golf – he is capable of posting some extremely low scores and will definitely help us push this program to where we want to go.

Iowa State Scores

T19. Ruben Sondjaja 75-71-73=219

T19. Nick Voke 76-72-71=219

T32. Denzel Ieremia 74-76-73=223

T68. Connor Koberg 80-79-77=236

T72. Collin Foster 79-76-82=237

Beau Hossler from Texas won the tournament at 202. The Texas Longhorns also won the team portion of the event.

I was a bit rusty out of the gate but improved after each round. I felt like my game was a tad off this week – it was the first competitive round since October and there were a couple of things that needed some work. I was thrilled to get out there in the thick of battle though. It’s an exciting and lengthy semester so there are going to be plenty of oppotunities! 

Sewailo Golf Club

The golf course, named “Sewailo,” meaning “flower world” in the Yaqui language, opened in December 2013. The championship-style course, designed by Ty Butler and Notah Begay III, resembles a desert oasis with impressive water features incorporated into the surrounding landscape. The entire property, including the luxurious, 215-room Casino Del Sol Resort, takes full advantage of the natural setting and surrounding mountain views. 

Sewailo is more parkland than typical Arizona target golf thanks to the tribe’s access to the Central Arizona Project water under rights owned by the tribe providing 325 million gallons of water per year – four to five times that of the average Arizona golf course.  Multiple streams and creeks with four waterfalls were designed to be as natural looking as possible.

Sewailo means “flower world,” and the course is loaded with more than 30,000 plants and native flowers salvaged during construction and the planting of thousands more, including a few saguaros here and there. The flower world includes xeroscape – water reduction plantings – that certainly follow the theme of the golf course.

Among the plants are wild flowers, including brittle bush, a desert shrub in the sunflower family. It blooms yellow in the early spring. Along the no. 9 and 18 corridor more than 500 rose bushes were planted, with 80 pyracanthas lining one bank. Planted trees include pine, Texas mountain laurel, weeping willows, palo verde, mesquite and flowering evergreens. In a year or two, as the native areas fill in, the course could very well be one of the most colorful outside of Aviara Golf Club near San Diego.