Getting better and better, junior AJ Armstrong looks to build on an impressive fall performance as men’s golf gets ready to tee off its spring season.

After competing in all five of the fall tournaments earlier this season, the Canadian native turned some heads at the Itani Quality Homes Collegiate in September. Armstrong shot eight under in the three-round tournament, tying for a fifth-place finish and notching two birdies on the final two holes to help WSU pull out a one-stroke win over Boise State University.

“The weird thing is that you never really know what your team is at, so you just got to do what you can individually and hope everything comes together in the end,” Armstrong said. “It was my last hole, so I didn’t know if it meant anything at the time, but it turns out it did.”

Since there is only so much warm weather in the fall, the players get a big break and then the season picks up again in the spring. Armstrong has been trying to improve certain areas of his game during the time off, even taking a trip to Florida after the end of the fall semester to play in ideal conditions.

During winter break, players typically travel and get rounds in by themselves. When they get back from break, the home course of Palouse Ridge Golf Course is still closed, so players travel south to Lewiston to practice their craft.

“It’s honestly great,” Armstrong said. “Because it’s about 10 degrees warmer down there, the courses stay open and it’s in pretty good shape.”

He said the team has been effective in reaching the greens, but their focus is improving their play once they get there.

“Driving and iron play were pretty much at the top of the Pac-12 as a team and individually,” Armstrong said. “And then around the greens and putting we were near the bottom, so that’s definitely our main focus this offseason.”

This will be put to the test next week when the team heads to Lihue, Hawaii, for the John Burns Intercollegiate. Armstrong said the players are looking forward to it.

“All our tournaments are honestly great, we play awesome courses,” he said. “Then it’ll all lead up to the Pac-12 championship, which is a big deal.”

Armstrong said he has a couple objectives in mind for the team and himself as they prepare for the second half of the season.

“We’ve won our home tournament, but I think that just winning a tournament away from home would be really cool,” he said. “And then getting my first collegiate individual win would be a main goal of mine.”

Aside from preparing for the upcoming tournament, Armstrong said he has been keeping up with his schoolwork, despite considering a career in golf beyond college.

“It’s pretty important to me. Golf is great, but at the end of the day you still want to have an education,” Armstrong said. “[I’m going to] just kind of see where the next three semesters take me and evaluate at the end whether I want to give professional golf a shot.”