THE WOODLANDS, TX -- Texas A&M senior Geoff Shaw shot an 8-under 136 (69-67) on Monday and tops the field at The Woodlands All-American Intercollegiate outside Houston.
Shaw (Edmond, Okla.) went 3-under in the first round of the day, including an eagle on the par-5 15th hole, then carded six birdies on the second 18 holes to hit the clubhouse with the lead.
“Geoff is playing the best golf of his career,” head coach J.T. Higgins said. “He’s been practicing and putting so much time and effort into getting ready for the postseason and the stretch run, and it’s showing. We had a great week of qualifying before we came here. He’s played well in the last two tournaments. His confidence is overflowing and that as well as his game makes him fun to watch. He’s putting great, hitting the ball great and putting himself in position to score.”
As a team, 15th-ranked Texas A&M shot a 14-under 562 (282-280) and is in third place, six shots out of the lead.
“I thought we played fantastic,” head coach J.T. Higgins said. “We did some things that great teams do. We played the par 5s amazing—we were 26-under with all five guys on the par 5s. I think on No. 13 we had five birdies with 10 putts, so all five were putting for eagle. On No. 15 in the morning round we made three eagles and a birdie and played the hole 7-under. We were hitting the ball fantastic. The thing that hurt us though was that we made too many big numbers. We had to count a triple, a quad and two doubles, and we had three more balls that we hit in the water that we got up down for bogey. Those are just mistakes you can’t afford to make. But because we’re playing well in other areas we’re in good shape.”
12th-ranked Arkansas leads the field at 20-under 556 (280-276), followed by North Texas (560, -16). SMU (-5) is nine shots back of the Aggies in fourth place, with Houston (-2), No. 16 Clemson (-1), Baylor (E), Southeastern Louisiana (E), Tulsa (+3), Louisiana-Lafayette (+4), Texas State (+7), UT Arlington (+10), Notre Dame (+15), Rice (+22) and Lamar (+23) rounding out the field.
Two more Aggies sit in the top 10 individually—freshman Ty Dunlap (71-69=140, -4) and redshirt freshman Greg Yates (71-70=141, -3), who is playing as an individual. Senior Jordan Russell (69-73) is in 15th place at 2-under 142, while junior Cameron Peck (73-71) sits in 26th with an even-par 144 and sophomore Johannes Veerman (75-73=148) is in 52nd at 4-over par.
Action concludes on Tuesday on the Tournament Course at The Woodlands Country Club with an 8 a.m. start. Live scoring can be found on golfstat.com and aggieathletics.com. Fans can also follow the action with updates via twitter at @AggieMensGolf.
“We don’t need to do anything differently,” Higgins said. “We’re playing real good golf. We’re going to have to play real good golf to win, but that’s what we plan to do. We’ve got a great game plan, obviously one that can lead to lots of birdies. We just have to make sure we don’t give them away. If we can do that we have a great chance.”
