May 21, 2004
Texas A&M battled windy conditions for a second-round 303 on Friday and is in fourth place at the NCAA Men's Golf Central Regional at the Kampen Course at Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex. The final round will be played on Saturday.
The top 10 teams and two individuals will advance to the NCAA Championships June 1-4 in Hot Springs, Va. A&M has not qualified for the national tournament since 1997.
"We got off to a good start today but conditions got tougher as the day went on," A&M coach J.T. Higgins said. "We were under par for most of the front nine, but we took a few big numbers and that sort of took the wind out of our sails. But we battled hard coming in and kept ourselves in contention. We're excited about our chances to advance. We just need to stick with our game plan."
The Aggies 292-303=595 total trails leader and No. 22-ranked Kentucky (583) by 12 strokes. No. 8 Oklahoma State is in second (585) and No. 9 Texas is third (594). A&M leads fifth-place Purdue (297) by two shots.
"This is what we practiced so hard for all season." said A&M sophomore Andrew Parr, who carded a two-over-par 74 and remains in contention for the individual title. "We wanted to be in this situation.We just have to go out tomorrow, play hard and count it up at the end. There is a lot on the line, but we can't think about that -- we just need to focus on each shot and see what happens."
Parr's 69-74=143 total is tied for third and trails tournament leader Brandon Waldrop of Kentucky (70-70=140) by three strokes. Texas' Jason Hartwick is in second at 69-73=142.
A&M senior Stephen Reed had the Aggies' best round on Friday with an even-par 72 and is tied for 11th with a 146 total. Sophomore Rand Arbuckle is tied for 55th (74-79=153), while senior David Tasker is tied for 64th (75-79=154) and junior David Schultz is tied for 73rd (77-78=155).
For the second straight day Parr posted five birdies in his round. He birdied his first hole, but three-putted the third hole for a bogey to go back to even-par. Parr added another bogey on the 6th, but followed with a birdie on 7th after sticked his approach shot one foot from the flag. He double-bogeyed the par-3 8th to go to two-over-par.
Parr closed the front nine with one of the best shots of the day on the 480-yard par-4 9th. After his drive landed in thick rough, he blasted a four-iron 210 yards to within six feet of the hole and sank the birdie putt. He added a couple more birdies on the back nine before finishing with a bogey on the final hole.
"It was pretty crazy out there today," Parr said.
Reed dropped a 15-foot birdie putt on his second hole and went to two-under when he sank a 12-footer for birdie on the par-3 5th. He made the turn at one-under after taking his first bogey of the day on the par-4 9th. Reed remained at one-under through 13 holes before taking consecutive bogeys on the 14th and 15th. He played the final three holes in one-under, making a 25-foot birdie putt on the 17th.
"This is a beast of a golf course," Reed said. "You've got to hit the ball very solid because there is no room to miss it. I've hit the ball crisp both days, but I had fewer mental mistakes today."
Rounding out the top 10 are No. 17-ranked Oklahoma (599), SMU (601), Wichita State (602), No. 10 TCU (602), No. 13 Minnesota (605) and Kansas State (605).
Kent State is in 12th place (606), followed by Notre Dame (607), Colorado (611), Ohio State (612), Texas Tech (613), Indiana (614), No. 25 Kansas (615), Tulsa (620), No. 23 Arkansas (621), Lamar (622), Xavier (628), Illinois (629), Baylor (638), Princeton (641), Western Illinois (646) and Jackson State (670).
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