June 02, 2004
The way Stephen Reed looks at it, his senior golf season at Texas A&M didn't really start until the last two weeks. In that short span, Reed has transformed his most disappointing year into perhaps his best.
And he's carried his Aggie teammates with him.
Reed fired a two-under-par 68 on Wednesday in the second-round of the 107th NCAA Men's Golf Championships at The Homestead's Cascades Golf Course, keeping the A&M in contention for a high finish and placing himself in the hunt for the individual crown.
A&M is in 22nd place with a 291-292=583 total, but is just 15 shots behind No. 20-ranked California, which leads the championship with scores of 279-289=568. No. 17 Kentucky is in second at 569, followed by No. 22 BYU at 570.
The field will be cut to the top 15 teams and six individuals not on those teams after Thursday's third round. A&M, just three shots behind 15th-place Penn State (580), will tee off at 11:45 p.m. (CST). The final round is scheduled for Friday.
"We haven't yet played our best golf but I'm happy with our position," A&M coach J.T. Higgins said. "We know we could be doing a lot better, but we're only 15 back and we have two rounds left. It's a lofty goal, but our guys believe they can overcome that. We've moved past just being happy to be here - now we want to make something happen."
Reed is tied for 19th place in the individual standings with an even-par total of 72-68=140, four strokes behind co-leaders Jeff Hood of California (65-71=136), Chris Nallen of Arizona (69-67=136) and Matt Wells of Kentucky (68-68=136).
A&M's David Schultz is tied for 50th (71-74=145), Andrew Parr is tied for 75th (73-74=147), David Tasker is tied for 112th (74-76=150) and Rand Arbuckle is tied for 148th (75-81=156).
An all-conference pick as a junior, Reed won a tournament in the fall but failed to finish in the top 15 in his next nine events, including a dismal tie for 56th place at the Big 12 Championships in late April.
But Reed ironed out his swing problems in May, accepted a larger leadership role and turned his - and the Aggies' -- season around with an eighth-place effort at the NCAA Central Regional two weeks ago.
"I was so disappointed in myself this year and I would have been heartbroken if we hadn't made it through regionals," Reed said. "It's my job as a senior to lead this team and because of that I tried to force it too much. I made some swing adjustments and once we made it to regionals, it was like a new season and it didn't matter what had happened to that point."
"Stephen didn't hit it all that well today but he played intelligent golf," Higgins said. "That was what he did at regionals and he's doing it again here. He's been a strong leader for us and in that last month has really stepped up. It's great to see him play well because he deserves it."
Reed had only two bogeys and tossed in four birdies on Wednesday, including one on the par-3 11th (his second hole), where he sank a slick downhill putt from 18 feet.
"On the last four holes on Tuesday I started hitting it pretty solid and that carried over to today," Reed said. "I just tried to play smart and stay out of trouble."
No. 23 Washington is in fourth place (571), followed by Pepperdine (571), Georgia State (572), No. 5 UCLA (572), No. 10 TCU (573), No. 8 Arizona (573), No. 1 Florida (574), No. 8 Texas (574) and No. 6 Georgia Tech (574).
No. 2 Clemson is in 13th (575), followed by Purdue (577), Penn State (580), Auburn (581), No. 13 Oklahoma (581), No. 7 Oklahoma State (581), Kent State (582), No. 15 New Mexico (582), No. 11 Southern California (582), A&M (583), SMU (585), North Carolina (585), Toledo (586), No. 3 Georgia (587), No. 4 Arizona State (596), Vanderbilt (597), Wichita State (602) and Rhode Island (610).
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