As the summer comes to a close, a new semester and school year steadily approaches in the Bronx with the Fordham golf team gearing up for their second season under head coach Gary Murphy. Under Murphy in his first full season as head coach, the Rams’ best finish came back in early April during the Monmouth Hawk Invitational at Deal Golf and Country Club where the Rams placed second in the one-day outing.
However, arguably the biggest accolade for Murphy and the Rams came during the off-season when Fordham Golf was recognized as one of fifty-four Division I golf programs nationwide for their studies in the classroom, earning the President’s Special Recognition from the Golf Coaches Association of America for having a team cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher. Fordham was the only representative from the Atlantic 10 Conference to achieve the prestigious honor.
As for the play on the course, Fordham was led by five total seniors in 2022-23, including Andreas Aivazoglou, Charles Smollen, John Kryscio, Nicholas Manning and P.J. O’Rourke.
Manning and O’Rourke, most notably, put together strong senior campaigns. With both seniors Both of which finishing among the individual top five in the Monmouth Invitational, O’Rourke and Manning had their best career finishes during the outing, with O’Rouke carding a 74 in fourth place and Manning not only sporting a career-best finish at second, but shooting his lowest round score of his Fordham tenure with a 68. O’Rourke also carded career bests during the fall portion of the schedule when the senior tied his career-low round of 68 at the Ryan Lee Memorial and set a new personal record of 140 in low two-round score also during the Ryan Lee.
The duo of Manning and O’Rouke were tied atop the Fordham roster for the lowest score in a round in both the fall and spring seasons with a pair of 68’s as John Kryscio and Andreas Aivazoglou followed behind with low scores of 70 and 71, respectively.
Even with the majority of the Rams’ roster being occupied by seniors, Fordham saw great production from underclassmen and rising juniors Jake Mrva and Chris Konefal. In an impressive sophomore season, Mrva set career bests all across the board. The Shrewsbury, Massachusetts native finished inside the top 10 for the first time of his collegiate career with his eighth place finish in the Metropolitan Championship back in early November, set a new career-low three-round score of 220 in the Hartford Invitational, a low two-round score of 140 also in the Hartford Invitational and just one stroke behind O’Rourke and Manning for the team’s best individual score, carding a 69 during the Coca-Cola Invitational in April. Konefal was not too far behind Mrva’s top finishes with a solid 70 in the Hartford Invitational and also finishing inside the top 10 for the first time of his Fordham career and just one stroke behind Mrva to slot in a tie for 10th place in the Metropolitan Championship. Both Mrva and Konefal sport massive leaps in the right direction following excellent sophomore campaigns and look to become the newest
leaders of what will be a rather younger Fordham Golf roster in 2023-24.
With the Fordham academic year starting in just over a week, word on the official roster and schedule have yet to be announced, but can be expected in the coming days or weeks. There is much to look forward to for this upcoming links season at Fordham as Gary Murphy and company are poised for another step in the right direction for this program.
