VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. – After playing 36 holes on the Old Overton Country Club Monday, the Texas A&M men's golf team sits in a tie for seventh place at the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate.
“Today didn't go well,” Texas A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. “We had a chance for a couple of really solid rounds but finished horribly in both. With that said, you have to play them all and we have had trouble closing it out this fall. We did a lot of things well today that we can build on for a good final round tomorrow.”
The Aggies put up back-to-back team scores of 290 during their first two runs through the course, leaving them at 20-over par heading into Tuesday's final round.
Tournament host Alabama (268-285=553, -7), meanwhile, sits atop the team leaderboard with a 10-shot advantage over Florida State (290-273=563, +3) and Georgia Tech (285-278=563, +3).
Senior Greg Yates (72-71=143, +3), seeing his first action of the fall semester, stands out as the highest-ranking Aggie on the leaderboard after two rounds, holding a share of 20th place. The Mansfield, Texas, native ascended the standings by carding a one-under par 34 during the second round's back nine, including back-to-back birdies on No. 14 and 15.
A pair of A&M golfers are amongst a six-way tie for 29th as Andrew Lister (71-73=144, +4) and Andrew Paysse (71-73=144, +4) are each four-over par for the tournament.
Rounding out the A&M contingency on day one of the event were juniors Adrià Arnaus (76-73=149, +9) and Ben Crancer (80-76=156, +16), who sit in ties for 43rd and 55th, respectively.
Texas A&M will be one of the first teams to return to the course Tuesday morning for the final round as the Aggies tee off at 12:30 p.m. alongside Florida State and UNLV.