Feb. 17, 2011
KAHUKU, Hawai'i - Texas A&M senior Conrad Shindler carded his second consecutive 68 on Thursday and sits alone atop the field after two rounds of the John A. Burns Intercollegiate on the North Shore of O'ahu.
Shindler (68-68=136, -8) holds a one-stroke lead over a pair of California golfers heading into Friday's final round at the Palmer Course at Turtle Bay Resort.
"J.T. Higgins said. "He has played 36 holes without a bogey and looks fantastic. He has a great momentum going into the final round and it would be cool to see him bring home the medal."
The eighth-ranked Aggies shot a 6-under 282 on Thursday, bringing their two-day total to an 11-under 565. A&M sits eight shots back of Cal, which blistered the field with a second-round 274 and is at 19-under 557 for the tournament.
"I think we missed a great opportunity today," Higgins said. "The course was set up to score today and Cal really took advantage of it and we didn't execute or take advantage of our opportunities. At times, we were just plain careless and that's really disappointing. The good news is we still have 18 holes left and if we can manage to stay out of our own way, we could still make a run at the leaders."
Virginia and Nevada are tied for third at 577 (+1), 12 shots back of A&M. SMU (580, +4) is in fifth, followed by Fresno State (581, +5), Arizona (581, +5), New Mexico (584, +8), Denver (587, +11) and Hawai'i (587, +11). BYU-Hawai'i (597, +21) is in 11th, followed by BYU (603, +27), Hawai'i Pacific (603, +27), Hawai'i-Hilo (608, +32), UTEP (610, +34) and Utah (622, +46).
A&M junior Jordan Russell (69-72=141, -3) is tied for sixth, while sophomore Cameron Peck (76-70=146, +2) is tied for 28th. Senior Nacho Elvira (75-72) and sophomore Case Cochran (71-76) are tied for 34th at 3-over 147. Senior John Hurley, playing as an individual, is in the hunt for medalist and just three shots back of the lead in fourth place (69-70=139, -5).
Friday's final round will start at 7:30 a.m. HST/11:30 a.m. CST. Live scoring will be available on golfstat.com.