Going into Monday’s first day of the Big 12 Men’s Golf Championship, the Texas A&M Men’s Golf team knew that Southern Hills Golf Course would bare its teeth early and often throughout the entire 36 holes. What the team didn’t expect was that Southern Hills would add another facet to the already difficult layout – the weather.
A&M fought off a rainstorm that delayed the second round of the tournament by more than two hours, as well as a slow start to the tournament by every player, before having its second round cut short by darkness with six to nine holes remaining. When the Aggies left the course, they were clinging to a three-shot lead for fourth place over the University of Nebraska, at 18-over-par.
A&M golf coach J.T. Higgins said that while the team did play one of its worst tournaments to date in the opening rounds, he did say that the positive thing is that the Aggies are still in contention.
“We played probably the worst golf we’ve played all year, but the silver lining is that we still have a chance to win,” Higgins said.
The wet conditions made scoring exceptionally hard for the Aggie golf team. A&M sophomore Martin Piller is the only A&M golfer in the top 15 at 2-over-par, while freshman Bronson Burgoon and sophomore Robert Gates Jr. both remain in the top 20 at 4-over-par with nine holes to play. Rounding out the Aggie scoring were seniors Jerad Harklau at eight-over-par and Andrew Parr at 10-over-par.
Higgins said the Aggies’ bad start to the round wasn’t based squarely on any one player’s performance, but more on the team’s lack of focus and execution around the greens where the Aggies had at least 10 three-putts in the round.
“There are a lot of holes left to play and we just need to come out tomorrow and play our game,” Higgins said. “We weren’t as focused today as we have been and made some mistakes we don’t normally make. We had at least 10 three-putts and the greens weren’t playing all that fast.”
Other than the Aggies slow start on the opening day of the tournament, the biggest surprise of the first round had to be the reversal of fortunes by two teams in the field – No. 2 Oklahoma State and University of Oklahoma.
The No. 2 Cowboys, who were last season’s Big 12 champions, find themselves in an unfamiliar position in sixth place at 22-over-par, 15 shots behind surprising first round leader Oklahoma. The Sooners, who shot 7-over-par as a team, have a three-shot lead over the second place Texas Tech Red Raiders.