Big 12 Championships Preview: Men's Golf
Apr 28, 2003 | Men's Golf
April 28, 2003
| NOTE: This is the third in a series of Big 12 Championships previews here on AggieAthletics.com. This week, also look for softball. Baseball will conclude the series in mid-May. It was a season that began for the Texas A&M men's golf team last fall in legendary St. Andrews, Scotland. This week, the squad nears the end of the year by playing on yet another famous course, Southern Hills, in Tulsa, Okla. After six years at Prairie Dunes Golf Club in Hutchinson, Kan., the Big 12 Championships will be played at a different venue for the first time. Southern Hills (par 70/2,016 yards) has been the site of 13 major golf championships, including the 2001 U.S. Open, and will be the site of the 2007 PGA Championship. You'd think that there may be some butterflies for college kids playing on one of the more famous courses in the region, if not the country. "I think it's just the opposite," said second-year A&M coach J.T. Higgins. "We're excited about the opportunity to play such a great golf course. That's kind of what golfers live for. The better course you play, the more excited about it you get." The tournament will consist of 36 holes on Monday and a final 18 on Tuesday for a total of 54 holes. In addition to No. 67-ranked A&M, the field will include No. 3 Texas, No. 8 Oklahoma State, No. 29 Oklahoma, No. 37 Baylor, No. 53 Kansas State, No. 57 Texas Tech, No. 63 Missouri, No. 69 Kansas, No. 81 Iowa State, No. 82 Colorado, and No. 111 Nebraska. Texas A&M will tee off with the team of senior Shaun Helmle, juniors David Tasker, Parker Briley and Stephen Reed, and freshman Andrew Parr. Oklahoma State has been tabbed as the favorite in a poll of Big 12 coaches, followed by Texas and Oklahoma. "OSU and Texas have been head and shoulders above everyone else all year," Higgins said. "Both are ranked in the top 10 and have tremendous teams. After that, it's pretty wide open. We've beaten Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas Tech and Kansas State the last time we played them, and those are the next best teams other than us." Higgins says the layout of the course may not only tighten the field but play to the Aggies' strengths. "(Southern Hills) sets up pretty well for us," Higgins said. "We have had very good success on shorter, tighter golf courses. The more difficult the course, the better chance we have. Texas and Oklahoma State are teams that make lots of birdies. If you put them on a course that takes that advantage away, it gives the rest of us a good chance to compete with them." A&M and Coach Higgins will look to pull some momentum from a fantastic rally at the Border Olympics that saw the Aggies erase a 16-stroke deficit in the final round to force a playoff with Arkansas, which A&M eventually won. "It's as big a comeback as I've ever heard of," Higgins said. "The players wanted the win. It had been so long since we'd had a victory, and they went out and got it. We made clutch shots from the fairways and made great putts, we didn't give shots away, we didn't three-putt, or hit balls out of bounds. We played very solid, smart golf, and that's what I really remember about the whole tourney." The team knew it had played well, maybe enough to move up to second or third. When they got into the clubhouse and realized they had tied Arkansas, the Aggies stayed focused and got ready for the playoff. A&M won that on the fourth hole. Higgins points to a determination the team showed that day that it hadn't shown all year, and feels the team can take that experience and use it to their advantage during the pressures found during postseason play. "It gives us two things," Higgins said. "First, no matter how far behind we are, we know we're not out of it. We know it can be done, and that's a confidence that you can't get unless you've done it before. Second, we found out we can shoot low scores. 10-under is great score on any course--to know we can put out that kind of number shows we're capabale of playing with the best teams. We just have to have that focus and intenstiy all the time." All five players in the A&M lineup have showed the ability to post low scores and four players have posted top 10 tournament finishes. As a team, A&M has posted six top-10 finishes and three top fives in 10 tournaments. Reed is the only player in the A&M lineup with Big 12 experience. He tied for fifth as a freshman in 2001 (75-79-72=226) and tied for 23rd last year (74-76-71=221). Reed has played in all 10 tournaments this season and has posted seven top 30 finishes, including three top six performances. Reed tied for second at the Louisiana Classics and the Border Olympics, where his 209 total was the lowest 54-hole score by an Aggie in five years. "Stephen Reed has been our best player all spring," Higgins said. "He has played tremendous golf, both him and (David) Tasker. We're solid at the three, four and five spots, so if the two of them play well, we'll be capable of playing with anyone in the Big 12." Tasker leads the Aggies in scoring with a 73.00 average and has posted five top-25 finishes and a pair of top 10s. Four schools have won Big 12 titles. Oklahoma State has won three times (1997, 1998, 2000), while Kansas (1999), Baylor (2001) and Texas (2002) also have captured the crown. A&M has won 10 conference titles in men's golf, all in the Southwest Conference (1926, 1948, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1967, 1969, 1982, 1987). Ten A&M golfers have won individual conference titles, also all in the SWC. A&M's last individual champions were in 1995, when Anthony Rodriguez and Dru Fenimore shared the title with SMU's Jim Skinner and Houston's Lance Combrink. Higgins is looking for a solid performance by the Aggies this week to lock up a bid to NCAA Regional play, which most likely for Texas A&M would be at Colbert Hills in Manhattan, Kansas. "I think we're on the bubble, but on the good side of the bubble," Higgins said. "Just competing in the conference championship should be enough for us, but if we go in and play the way we're capable of, we should be in the top half of the field and that would put us in regionals." |
