September 22, 2001
The Texas A&M men's golf team carded a final round 302 on Saturday and finished 14th at the 47th William H. Tucker Intercollegiate at the University of New Mexico's Championship Golf Course.
No. 19-ranked New Mexico, the tournament host, won the 54-hole event with rounds of 278-294-287=859, 11 strokes ahead of No. 20 Pepperdine's 870 total. No. 2-ranked Arizona finished third at 871, followed by No. 13 UNLV (872), No. 20 Southern California (872), San Diego State (876), Colorado (883), Colorado State (884), Brigham Young (885), New Mexico JV (886), No. 10 Arizona State (891), No. 22 Oregon State (896), Southeastern Louisiana (899), A&M (293-309-302=904), Wyoming (906), New Mexico State (908), Texas-El Paso (909), Air Force (910), Utah (922) and Hawaii (923).
BYU's Manuel Merizalde won the individual title with a seven-under-par total of 72-71-66=209, finishing three shots ahead of New Mexico's Wil Collins (67-74-71=212) and Michael Letzig (68-73-71=212).
The Aggies were led by junior Dwayne Morley, who tied for 37th with rounds of 74-74-75=223. Also for A&M, sophomore Stephen Reed tied for 46th at 73-76-75=224, senior Sean Gilliland tied for 73rd at 71-78-81=230, freshman Rand Arbuckle tied for 73rd at 75-81-74=230 and senior Clay Fullick tied for 98th at 75-84-78=237. Senior Josh McCoy, competing as an individual, tied for 93rd at 78-81-76=235.
"Right now, we really have a confidence problem," said J.T. Higgins after his first outing as A&M's head coach. "We'll start working on that when we get back. Our ball striking is okay, but we seem to be very unsure of ourselves. But it's a long season and we'll start getting ready for our next tournament."
The Aggies are back in action Oct. 8-9 at the Red River Classic in Dallas.