NO. 12 AGGIES IN NINTH AFTER FIRST ROUND IN HAWAI'I
TEXAS A&M MEN'S GOLF
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
KAHUKU, Hawai'i-The 12th-ranked Texas A&M men's golf team sits in ninth place after Wednesday's first round of the John A. Burns Intercollegiate on the North Shore of O'ahu.
The Aggies carded an even-par 288 on the par 72, 7,218-yard Palmer Course at Turtle Bay Resort and are 18 shots back of defending champion and 10th-ranked California, who leads the field at 18-under 270.
"We're disappointed in today's round," head coach J.T. Higgins said. "The course is set up really easy and we expected to shoot a lot lower score than we did. We didn't make many birdies and also had some dumb mistakes-we hit some balls in the water and put up some big numbers, and we had a player hit the wrong ball too. We were giving shots away that we really couldn't afford to. Maybe that comes with it being the first round of the season, but at the same time those mistakes shouldn't happen."
No. 25 New Mexico (274, -14) is in second place, followed by No. 14 UNLV (-10), SMU (-6) and No. 17 Duke (-6). Colorado State, Nevada and Missouri sit in a three-way tie for sixth at 1-under, one shot ahead of A&M.
Host Hawai'i (+2) is in 10th, with Fresno State (+4), Arizona (+6), Hawai'i-Hilo (+8), BYU (+9), Denver (+10), UTEP (+16), Utah (+17) and BYU-Hawai'i (+20) rounding out the field.
True freshman Ty Dunlap and senior Geoff Shaw led the Aggies on Wednesday, with each firing a 1-under 71 and sitting in a tie for 22nd. Senior Jordan Russell carded an even-par 72 and is in 36th, junior Cameron Peck is in 49th at 2-over 74 and redshirt freshman Greg Yates is in 67th after shooting a 4-over 76. Junior Case Cochran, playing as an individual, fired a 9-over 81.
"Regardless of all that happened today, we ended up shooting even par," Higgins said. "The good thing is the course is so scoreable that we are capable of posting double-digit low numbers both days and having a great event. That's what we will focus on over the next few days."
Action will resume with Thursday's second round, which has a shotgun start at 8 a.m. HST/12 p.m. CST.
Fans can follow the action through live scoring at Golfstat.com and aggieathletics.com. Updates will also be available on twitter at @AggieMensGolf. Fans can follow the Aggies' week-long trip to the islands via Facebook at facebook.com/AggieMensGolf.