The Iowa men’s golf team finished day one at the Gopher Invitational in fifth place out of 14 teams.

Head coach Mark Hankins’ squad closed the day with a team score of plus 13 after two rounds of play.

The Hawkeyes were led individually by Barrett Kelpin. The senior carded rounds of 3-under 69 and 71. Kelpin ended his second round in second place at 4-under, only one stroke back of the leader. He was the only Iowa golfer to post two subpar rounds, and his first-round score of 69 was one of only four scores under 70 recorded on Sunday.

Fellow senior Chris Brant also played well, shooting rounds of 70 and 75. Brant is also in the top 10 through two rounds — he is 1-over and in a three-way tie for seventh. Brant had five birdies in his first round but only two through his second round of 18 holes.

As a team, the Hawkeyes posted first- and second-round scores of 294 and 295. Iowa is 12 strokes behind team leader Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish are 1-over as a team, four strokes ahead of second-place Arkansas.

Individually, Notre Dame’s Paul McNamara sits atop the leaderboard after firing a first-round score of 66. McNamara posted 11 birdies on the day and an eagle on the par-5 16th during round one.

Iowa will resume play today. Redshirt freshman Ian Vandersee (21-over) will be the first Black and Gold golfer to tee off, at 8:50 a.m., and then one Hawkeye will tee off every 10 minutes.

— by Ben Schuff