May 19, 2011
TUCSON, Ariz. - The Texas A&M men's golf team shot a 3-under 281 on Thursday and sits in a tie for fourth place after the first round of the NCAA Arizona Regional at the Omni Tucson National Golf Resort.
The top-seeded Aggies, who shot 4-over on the front nine, blistered the back half of the course to the tune of 7-under and are just three shots out of the lead heading into day two. Second-seeded San Diego State (278) holds the lead at 6-under, followed by Washington (-5) and Liberty (-4).
"Things turned out well, but we're not real satisfied with how we played," head coach J.T. Higgins said. "The speed of the greens caught us off guard. We had trouble around them early, but we figured it out. I'm really happy with how we played on the back nine, but we just can't put ourselves in that kind of position. That being said, we're in a good spot with two rounds to go and I think we'll play a lot better the next few days."
Host Arizona is tied with A&M at 3-under, while Texas Tech (-1) is in sixth, Pepperdine (E) and Oregon State (E) are in seventh, Cal (+2) is in ninth and UC Davis (+3) is in 10th. Purdue (+6), UT Arlington (+10), Army (+18) and Loyola-Maryland (+26) round out the field. The Aggies' team score of 281 is the fourth lowest in school history in an NCAA regional round.
Individually, A&M placed three under par, led by junior Jordan Russell and senior John Hurley. The pair each shot a 2-under 69 to sit in a tie for ninth, five shots back of the lead. Sophomore Cameron Peck is in a tie for 13th after carding a 1-under 70, while senior Nacho Elvira is in 38th with a 2-over 73. Senior Conrad Shindler (+10) rounded out the Aggie contingent.
"Jordan and John were just steady all day," Higgins said. "It was nothing flashy, just real solid golf. They kept the ball in play and had a lot of opportunities. Both felt they could have played even better. I'm really proud of Cam and Nacho holding it together, they got off to a rough start but were able to keep us in contention. They did a good job, and Conrad is going to help us out the next two days."
The top five teams and top individual not on a qualifying team advance out of Tucson to the NCAA Championships, May 31-June 5 at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Okla.
Round two gets underway on Friday at 10 a.m. (CT). Live scoring will be available on golfstat.com.