The Irvine Valley men's golf team started its 2016 season with wild round at the Orange Empire Conference Tee Off Classic at Los Serranos in Chino Hills on Monday.
For the first time in the history of the conference, weather conditions resulted in all of the conference scores by teams to be above 400.
Saddleback, Cypress and Orange Coast did the best job of handling the cold, windy conditions that followed the El Nino Sunday rain and windstorm.
Riverside, Santiago Canyon and Irvine Valley had the most difficulty with the strong winds.
Saddleback finished with a team score of 402, Cypress came in at 410, Orange Coast was at 412, Riverside finished up at 420, Santiago Canyon carded 431 and Irvine Valley scored 446.
Irvine Valley was led by sophomore Joe Gordon, who had 10 pars, seven bogeys and one double bogey for a score of 83 on the par 74 South Course at Los Serranos.
Sophomore Andrew Lichty had eight pars, nine bogeys and one double bogey for a score of 85.
Freshman Bruce Miranda finished with five pars, 10 bogeys and three double bogeys to card a 90.
Sophomore Steven Zezima had four pars, 12 bogeys, one double bogey, plus a five-putt quadruple bogey for a score of 92.
Freshman Kurt Hendricks ended with two pars, 11 bogeys, four double bogeys and one triple bogey for a 96 to round out Irvine Valley's scorers.
Freshman Albert Arvayo had the team's throw-out score of 107.
"This season's starting lineup will be an attempt to blend the learning curve of college competition of two freshmen with the leadership of three sophomores," IVC coach Ben Burnett said. "I hope to get the sophomores to resist trying to hit high risk shots in an attempt to carry the freshmen through their first tournament. Hit the fairways, play to the center of the greens, and avoid three putts is our team goal."
The weather and course conditions are expected to be good for Wednesday's match on the Los Serranos North Course, which will finish up the tournament.
