HOUSTON - Louisiana Tech junior Amrith de Soysa opened the spring golf season with a memorable performance, besting 62 other competitors to win the 2008 Rice Intercollegiate at Westwood Golf Club.
De Soysa shot a final round even-par 72 Tuesday for a three-round total of 217 to finish one stroke ahead of Winthrop's Kelly Manders and Southern Utah's Matt McArthur.
"Amrith has worked really hard the last few weeks," said Tech head coach Jean Hall. "I've been really pleased with him. Derek Busby who has joined us as an assistant coach has really been working hard with these guys, and I think part of Amrith's success is due to Derek's help, especially on his short game."
De Soysa had to use that short game on his final hole to win the tournament. On the par 4, 446-yard No. 9, the Columbo, Sri Lanka native orchestrated a masterful sand save out of the green-side bunker to save par.
It would be the difference in winning the tournament or heading to a three-way playoff.
"I knew it was an important bunker shot," de Soysa said. "I hit it perfectly. I've been really working on that shot recently and I managed to pull it out. I left it about three feet from the cup."
As happy as he was about the save, de Soysa still had no idea about how it would affect his overall finish in the individual standings.
"I didn't think (the 72) was enough to be honest with you," de Soysa said. "I came in before Memphis and Baylor finished and they both had some guys who were tied with me or ahead of me (going into the final round). I just didn't think it would be enough but it held up."
Memphis' Brad Benjamin led de Soysa by one shot heading into the last round but shot a closing 75 to finish two strokes behind. Baylor's Colton Williams also led by one but had to withdrawal in the third round.
"I played pretty good," de Soysa said. "I've been playing well the last couple of weeks. I've been working hard on my short game with Derek and that's the biggest improvement I've seen in my game."
De Sosya's best collegiate finish prior to the medalist honor was a fourth place finish at the 2006 Hal Sutton Intercollegiate, His best finish during the past fall season was 29th place at the Sam Hall Intercollegiate.
As a team, the Bulldogs finished in seventh place in the 12-team tournament. Hall said if his squad had started the tournament like it ended it, they would have taken home the team title as well.
"We win the tournament if we take just the last two rounds," Hall said. "We had the best (cumulative) team score over the final two rounds. We just played so poorly in the first round. It was similar to what we did at our tournament in the fall; we were just too far behind too many good teams."
Baylor won the team title with a total of 878 followed closely by UC Davis (880).
In addition to de Soysa's performance, Tech's Corey Bartlett (77-77-70=224) and Matthew Harvey (78-69-77=224) finished tied for 23rd place while Ryan Robertson (81-75-77=233) finished tied for 45th and Clinton Shepard (83-75-78=236) finished tied for 50th.
"I was encouraged by the play and the efforts," Hall said. "We have some good tournaments coming up, and I think we'll play really well."