Going to school at Georgetown University is enough to put students to the test. And being a double major — in finance and technology operations — at an institution ranked No. 22 among national universities by U.S. News & World Report magazine makes it all the tougher.
Then throw in participating in a Division I sports program, and sometimes it seems like there simply aren’t enough hours in a day to fit everything in.
Brian Dorfman certainly feels that way at times, but that hasn’t kept the Greenwood Village resident from having a fall golf season that was nothing short of stellar.
In the course of just over five weeks from mid-September to mid-October, the Cherry Creek High School graduate won individual titles in two Division I invitationals and posted four top-10 finishes in five tournaments.
“It’s hard to win at the Division I level,” Georgetown coach Tommy Hunter said in a phone interview this week. “To win two tournaments over five events sends a message that Brian is very sound in what he’s doing. Everything is falling into place and he’s playing the best golf of his career right now.”
The Georgetown senior, who won the second college tournament he ever played — in the fall of 2008, now has three college victories to his credit. To put that into perspective, the last Georgetown golfer to win three times in his college career was at the university in the 1990s.
“It feels unbelievable” to post two victories during the fall schedule, Dorfman said recently. “This is my last year of college golf, and I want to make it memorable.”
Dorfman’s two wins this season came in the course of less than a month. He closed with a 68 and finished in a four-way tie for first place at the season-opening Maryland Intercollegiate in mid-September. Then on Oct. 11 in Hebron, Ky., Dorfman posted a bogey-free final-round 68 to tie for first in the Bearcat Invitational, then won a playoff by making a 7-foot par putt on the first extra hole.
Besides the victories, Dorfman threw in a ninth-place showing at the Xavier Invitational and a fifth-place finish at the Georgetown Intercollegiate, which wrapped up the fall portion of the Hoyas’ schedule a couple of weeks ago.
All told, Dorfman posted five rounds (out of 15) in the 60s, and had just one over 75. His stroke average was 71.6.
“I started playing well this summer,” said Dorfman, who finished fourth in the CGA Stroke Play and was the fifth-lowest amateur in the HealthOne Colorado Open. “That put me in a good place mentally. I started putting the ball well, and everything was clicking. My short game has helped me gain confidence with ball-striking. It takes the pressure off the rest of my game.
“It’s a stretch to say I expect to win, but I do expect to play well.”
With Dorfman having three college wins in his career, Hunter puts him among the best players he’s coached in his 27 years at the helm at Georgetown, which won the 2010 Big East Conference Championship.
“Brian is playing without fear, and that’s a good thing,” Hunter said. “He maps out a shot (in his mind), then goes with it. And even if the shot doesn’t follow the pattern, he has absolutely no concern about the next shot. There’s no question in his mind he’s going to make a good pass at the ball. That’s a clean way to play golf. He’s not worried about anything. He knows he has the arsenal to pull off any shot. Everything is all points go for Brian.”
At 21, Dorfman is a relative newcomer to high-level golf, having not started competing until he was 16. Before that, he was a highly regarded ski racer, going so far as to compete in Europe. “Basically it was my whole life growing up,” he said. But after his sophomore year of high school, he and his parents decided he should transition to golf, and it didn’t take Dorfman long to reach the top level of junior competitors in Colorado.
He qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2007 and won the CGA Junior Match Play title in 2008, the same year he won his first college tournament.
While Dorfman is enjoying his recent success on the course, he fully admits that at this time in the year he’s happy to get some time away from the game.
“I’m looking forward to a break from golf so much,” he said. “I’ll start playing again in a couple of months. That way, when I get back into it I’m excited to play rather than being burned out.”
And backing off also will allow Dorfman to catch up with his work at Georgetown. After devoting nine weekdays to tournaments rather than classes in September and October, that will be a welcome change of pace.
“It’s so busy,” he said of mixing golf and classes. “Georgetown is so hard. There’s mountains of homework, and it’s tough to do it on the road, especially after days where you play 36 holes (for a tournament).”
But somehow, Dorfman pulled off the juggling act almost perfectly this fall.
