APLHARETTA, Ga. – The No. 15 Texas A&M men’s golf team opened play at the U.S. Collegiate Championship on Friday, finishing the tournament’s opening round in a tie for 11th place.
The Aggies are currently tied with East Tennessee State with a score of 303 (+15). Southern California is ranks first in the tournament after day one with a score of 289, just one over par. Wake Forest (+3), Georgia Tech (+3), Oklahoma State (+5), Virginia (+7), Auburn (+9), UCLA (+9), Kent State (+9), Washington (+9) and Clemson (+13) followed behind sequentially. Iowa (+16) is in 13th, with Duke (+17) and Stanford (+18) bringing up the rear.
“I think we played really good golf for about 15 or 16 holes but just didn’t finish it off,” Texas A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. “We made three big numbers on No. 18. We caught a couple bad breaks on that hole with Greg losing a ball in the rough to end up taking a nine. If we could have finished that hole off strong we would be right there in the mix but now we’re fighting to get back into it.”
Sophomore Tyler Dunlap led the Aggies with a score of 74, two-over par, putting him in a tie for 22nd individually. Sophomore Greg Yates and junior Johannes Veerman were not far behind Dunlap, each recording a score of 76 (+4). Senior Cameron Peck and freshman Adrià Arnaus rounded out the A&M contingency with scores of 78 (+6) and 79 (+7), respectively.
“The guys are playing really well and they are down, but we’ve got 36 holes left and I know we are capable of some good golf,” Higgins added. “We’re going to go out there tomorrow, give it our best and try to move up the leaderboard and put ourselves in a good position.”
The second round will commence Saturday morning at 7:40 (CST). A&M will tee off from the first hole beginning at 8:50 a.m. and will be paired with Washington and host Georgia Tech. Live scoring for the event can be found at GolfStat.com.
