Golf can be a fickle game.
University of Utah golfer Tristan Mandur learned that this past spring. The native of Mill Bay, a tiny community on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, was a solid contributor for the Utes throughout the season, but clearly wasn’t their best player, as Blake Tomlinson and Mitchell Schow took turns in that role.
Then the NCAA Regionals happened in Cle Elum, Washington, not far from his boyhood home. Mandur found his game — thanks to a minor tweak in his golf swing — and became only the third Ute to qualify for the NCAA Championships as an individual since 1990, but the second in three years.
“My goal is to just go out and do my best. I don’t really have a specific expectation. It is more about trying my best and see what happens.” — Utah Utes golfer Tristan Mandur
Mandur is one of six individuals not affiliated with a team who will compete in the championships this weekend at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The first of three stroke-play rounds is Friday. After 54 holes, the top nine individuals not on an advancing team will then compete on Tuesday to determine an individual champion.
“My goal is to just go out and do my best,” Mandur said. “I don’t really have a specific expectation. It is more about trying my best and see what happens.”
After all, you can’t play defense in golf. Mandur says if he plays well and doesn’t advance to the final round, so be it. Former Utes who also made nationals include Dustin Pimm (2006), now a volunteer assistant coach in the program, and Kyler Dunkle (2019).
Mandur tied for fourth at regionals; he flew to Scottsdale on Wednesday to get in a few practice rounds before the tournament. Head coach Garrett Clegg, assistant coach Chance Cain and his girlfriend, Jade Mulvey a former Skyline High star and a member of the U’s track and field and cross-country teams, will be in his gallery.
He has a few aunts and uncles in the Phoenix area who might also make it over.
Last month, when the Utes were playing at the Thunderbird Collegiate tournament at Arizona State (they finished sixth and Mandur tied for 64th) the team got in a round at Grayhawk to get some familiarity with the course in case they returned for nationals.
That turned out to be fortuitous for Mandur.
“I like the course,” he said. “I played solidly. I feel like it suits my game well. … Ball-striking is definitely important to playing well there, and I feel like that’s something I do well. You have to keep it in play.”
Speaking before regionals, Clegg told the Deseret News that Mandur was the kind of golfer who could do some damage if he got hot, and that’s exactly what happened in Washington.
“I am extremely excited for Tristan,” Clegg said in a school news release. “What an incredible week he has had and (what) an amazing accomplishment to qualify for the NCAA Championships.”
The Utes tied for seventh as a team at regionals; only the top five teams advanced.
What turned it around for Mandur?
He said a few weeks before regionals he noticed “too much left-to-right fade” in his shots.
“So I tightened my swing,” he said. “I didn’t make too big of a change. It was one of those things where that small little change made a big difference.”
Growing up in golf
Mandur’s father, Tibor, was a golf pro in Vancouver, so the youngster had a club in his hands and was hitting balls when he was 3 years old.
Father and son made a makeshift driving range in their backyard — they hung a fishing net between some trees and hit off an artificial grass mat — and Tristan soon became a golf prodigy.
He won dozens of local, regional and even national events before attracting the attention of college scouts.
Clegg, a former Utah golfer, first became aware of Mandur when he was an assistant at Washington and then Washington State’s head coach for five seasons.
When Mandur visited Salt Lake City, it reminded him of home, and he committed not long after.
“First, I committed because of the coaches, coach Clegg and coach Cain. I just felt like they would help develop my game,” he said. “Also, just the university itself and all the resources it had that I felt could definitely take my game to the next level.
“Also, I think Salt Lake City is beautiful with the mountains and everything,” he continued. “It is definitely a place that you want to live in.”
Although he’s in his fourth year in the program, Mandur will take advantage of the NCAA ruling that allows for an “extra year” due to COVID-19 and return to the program in 2021-22.
He expects to graduate in spring 2022 with a degree in financial planning, then give professional golf a shot. One of the reasons he wants to return is because Utah just opened the $2.9 million David S. Layton Golf Academy on campus.
“It actually worked out really well for me,” he said. “I think with the coaches and the new facility it is definitely a place where I can develop my game and take it to the next level where I can compete and do well on the pro tour.”
First though, there’s this tournament in Arizona to conquer. Don’t count out the Canadian. Because golf is a fickle game.