Edwards Adds Three Recruits To Men's Golf Program

                BOULDER —University of Colorado men's golf coach Roy Edwards has added three prep performers, hailing from three different continents, to the Buffalo program, as all signed national letters-of-intent to attend CU beginning next fall in the recent fall signing period that began on Wednesday.
 
                Frederik Eisenbeis from Gymnasium Rodenkirchen in Cologne, Germany, Jack Holland from Haileybury College in Keysborough, Australia, and Dylan McDermott from Granite Bay (Calif.) High School will become the newest Buffaloes.
 
"We are extremely excited about signing Freddy, Dylan, and Jack," Edwards said.  "All three are extremely accomplished golfers and tremendous students, which is the perfect model for CU student-athletes.  Going forward, we expect all three to form a cornerstone to some great success individually and as a team for our program.  All three of them had their college searches abruptly halted during the spring, and I was impressed at how they adapted to what was available to them and how they came to their decisions.  We look forward to welcoming them to campus next fall."
 
Australia and Germany have proven to be great recruiting grounds for the Buffaloes, the latter most recently producing twins Jeremy and Yannik Paul last decade, two players who did major damage to the CU record book.  In fact, the duo toppled several records by Australians Kane Webber and Matt Zions, who roamed the fairways back between 1998 and 2004.
 
                Eisenbeis has compiled a most impressive resume in amateur play in his native Germany, including a victory in the 2019 Berlin Open Championship, where he turned in a 7-under par 281 and was one of two players in the field to shoot a pair of sub-70 scores.  He finished atop the leaderboard in the qualifiers for the German Junior Championship in both 2018 and 2019.  This past summer, after a rough start he placed fifth in the German National Boys Championship (78-68-67—213, -1), as he had the low score over the last two rounds (the only player in the field with two scores in the 60s over the final 36 holes).  He was fourth in the 2020 German Junior National (213, -3) and 12th in the 2020 German Men's National Championship (also 213, -3).  He also tied for 21st in the 2019 German National Amateur (open to all ages), finishing with a 2-under 286 score, and was 25th in the same event this year (215, -1).  He has a career-best score of 8-under 64.
 
                        "CU was the best choice for me because it gives me the opportunity to compete at the highest level of golf combined with a great school," Eisenbeis said.  "I've talked to Yannik about CU, and he spoke very highly of it which only made my decision easier.  CU just seems like a great fit for us Germans!"
 
Edwards on Eisenbeis: "Frederik is a highly-regarded player on the German National Team.  He has played at a high level all over Europe.  He is a high-achieving student who spent one year of high school in Florida.  Germans have been a great fit at CU and we expect Frederik to extend that legacy."
 
Holland, who is from Hampton, a coastal suburb of Melbourne in the state of Victoria in southeast Australia, has recorded several top amateur victories and sports a career low round of 7-under 65 (which he recorded as a 16-year old).  In 2019, he captured both the Associated Public Schools/AGSV State Championship and the Independent (Australian) Schools state final, winning the latter by five strokes.  He placed fifth in the Victorian Boys Championship and tied for seventh in the Victorian Junior Open.  In 2018, he also claimed the Independent Schools state final (won in a playoff) as well as the Rossdale Open Amateur. 
 
"Obviously, Boulder is a wonderful city and its scenic area and beautiful weather all year round definitely attracted me to the college," Holland said.  "Even though I wasn't able to visit the school myself, I was still extremely pleased with the online tours, the amazing buildings of the college and atmosphere of the town.
 
"Being a PAC-12 college, the fierce competition was a big reason for my selection of Colorado," he added.  "Facing off against the likes of Stanford, UCLA and Arizona State is awesome just thinking about and I can't wait to start competing and hopefully winning over these renowned college programs."
 
Edwards on Holland: "Jack is a rising star in Australia.  He is a near-perfect student and has grown up developing his game on one of the very elite golf courses in the world – Royal Melbourne.  Australia has long been one of the world's best at producing elite-level talent and Jack is on that same track to high-level competitive golf."

                McDermott, who won't turn 18 until next June, already owns a career-best score of 7-under 65.  He became the youngest champion in the history of the Memorial Amateur Championship (Carmichael, Calif.), when this past July he carded a 66-68-72—206 score (-10), posting a two-stroke win in the process.  He placed sixth in the inaugural Rocky Mountain Amateur (68-68-71—207, -9) and tied for 15th in the Silicon Valley Amateur.  He won the 2018-19 Player of the Year honor for the Junior Tour of Northern California, as he had several top finishes in Sacramento-based events, including back-to-back third place finishes in the Sacramento City Men's Championship.  He lettered four times at Granite Bay High School, playing the team's No. 1 position for his sophomore through senior years, earning his team's Most Valuable Player honor three times. 
 
"Because of COVID19, I actually haven't even had an official visit to CU," McDermott said.  "I did play in the Rocky Mountain Amateur and was able to walk around the campus with my parents and I really liked it.  My Dad worked in Denver for a year just out of college and said he used to visit friends going to school in Boulder.  Along with my Dad, literally everyone I talked to about Boulder had nothing but positive things to say. 
 
"In 2018, I was partnered with Steve Jones (CU alumni, 1996 U.S. Open champion)," he continued.  "One of the highlights of my junior golf career was playing three rounds with Mr. Jones at Pebble Beach in the Pure Insurance First Tee Championship. I learned that he was a CU alumni and found out later he had provided Coach Edwards with a very nice reference of me.  The people that I talked to that know Coach Edwards, other college coaches, Steve Jones and my swing coach, all said he was a great coach and a good man.  That made my decision easy, so I knew by the time he made me a verbal offer that I wanted to stay out west, and that meant the Pac-12 for me."
 
Edwards on McDermott: "Dylan has fast become one of the top players in California, and therefore the country, in the class of 2021.  He has been playing at a very high level for a long time and took a big step forward this year, playing very well week-after-week.  We feel very fortunate Dylan has decided to join us."
 
                Edwards also added a graduate transfer from Babson (Mass.) College to the roster, as four-year letterman Christopher Bornhorst joined the team in walk-on tryouts earlier this fall.  A team captain as a junior and senior, he was named the "Athlete of the Class of 2020" for all sports at Babson.  He helped the Beavers jump from outside the top 50 in the Division III national rankings as a freshman to 14th his senior year, and earned third-team All-America honors as a senior (the 26th-ranked individual overall), which followed his earning honorable mention All-America honors his junior year.  A four-time GCAA/PING All-Region selection, he was also a three-time NEIGA All-New England performer (2016, 2017, 2019).  He set the school record for career stroke average with a 73.97 figure for 71 rounds (most of Babson's tournaments were 36-hole affairs), with his stroke average as a senior a career-best 72.07.
 
                The Buffaloes did not finish the 2020 spring schedule and also did not compete in the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but hope to participate in a normal spring schedule that would culminate with the Pac-12 and NCAA Championships.  All four seniors on CU's 2019-20 roster, Victor Bjorlow, Andre Leveque, Ross Macdonald and Daniel O'Loughlin, are taking advantage of the NCAA exemption for all spring athletes to gain another year of eligibility if they choose to do so.