Aggies Wrap Up Round One at NCAA Championships

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The No. 14 Texas A&M Aggies finished the first round of the NCAA Championships tied for 15th place at 9-over 289 after Friday’s action at Grayhawk Golf Club.

The field is tight after the first day with the top 20 teams separated by 10 strokes. The Aggies are nine strokes off the pace heading into day two.

The par-70, 7,289-yard Raptor Course at Grayhawk was the winner on the first day. No team was able to break par as Georgia Tech leads the field at even 280. The top five includes Arkansas and Pepperdine one stroke back at 1-over 281 followed by North Carolina and Texas Tech at 2-over 282.

The magic number for the Aggies is five strokes, which is how far they sit behind the eighth-place spot. The top eight teams after the four rounds of stroke play advance to the quarterfinal match play bracket.

On a day which birdies were hard to come by, Daniel Rodrigues paced the Aggies with three. He led A&M with an even 70 to finish the day tied for 19th place.

Phichaksn Maichon and William Paysse are among a logjam of 23 players tied for 47th place at 2-over 72.

Sam Bennett and Vishnu Sadagopan rounded out the Aggie fivesome with scores of 75 and 76.

Texas A&M goes out in the morning wave Saturday with Vishnu Sadagopan teeing off at hole No. 1 at 9:05 a.m. Central.

COACH KORTAN QUOTES

On the round...

“We didn’t get off to the best start. We made a handful of bogeys on our first hole, but after that we played pretty well. We hung in there and shot 9-over-par which is right in the middle of the pack. That was no easy task playing in the afternoon today. I’m proud of the way the guys hung in there. They steadied the ship and have us in the fight playing in the national championship.

Approach going into tomorrow...

“We’re playing in the morning so the course will be a little more receptive. We just have to go out and execute. We talked about relaxing and freeing ourselves up a little bit to play the way we want to play. The guys are looking forward to getting out there in the morning. If they play some good golf and take care of the golf ball we’ll have a good day.”

TEAM SCORES

1 Georgia Tech 280 E

t-2 Arkansas 281 +1

t-2 Pepperdine 281 +1

t-4 North Carolina 282 +2

t-4 Texas Tech 282 +2

t-4 Vanderbilt 282 +2

7 Florida 283 +3

8 Florida State 284 +4

t-9 Georgia 285 +5

t-9 Illinois 285 +5

t-9 San Francisco 285 +5

t-12 Ohio State 287 +7

t-12 Oklahoma 287 +7

14 Auburn 288 +8

t-15 Texas A&M 289 +9

t-15 Brigham Young 289 +9

t-17 Alabama 290 +10

t-17 nDuke 290 +10

t-17 Stanford 290 +10

t-17 Virginia 290 +10

t-21 Arizona State 291 +11

t-21 Mississippi State 291 +11

t-23 Colorado 292 +12

t-23 Oregon 292 +12

25 New Mexico 293 +13

26 Chattanooga 294 +14

27 Texas 295 +15

28 Colorado State 296 +16

29 East Tennessee State 303 +23

30 Baylor 304 +24

TEXAS A&M SCORES

t-19. Daniel Rodrigues 70 E

t-47. Phichaksn Maichon 72 +2

t-47. William Paysse 72 +2

t-104. Sam Bennett 75 +5

t-115. Vishnu Sadagopan 76 +6

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