Upstate Battles Conditions, Stands 13th At Hawks Invitational
9/29/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Sept. 29, 2008
North Falmouth, Mass. - The USC Upstate men's golf team battled high winds, periods of rain, cold temperatures and very wet conditions to turn in a 306 in the first round of the Hartford Hawks Invitational at Ballymeade Country Club on Cape Cod Monday. The Spartans are currently 13th in the 23-team event.
Hurricane Kyle dumped large amounts of rain on the area over the last couple of days, causing the cancellation of the first round Sunday and shortening the tournament from 54 holes to 36. Play was delayed Monday morning with the teams teeing off with a shotgun start after noon.
With the winds leftover from now tropical storm Kyle, Upstate and the other 22 teams in the field battled the conditions. Baylor opened the tournament with a 4-under 284 to take the lead into the final round. TCU and Rhode Island are tied for second, eight strokes back of Baylor at 292. N.C. State is fourth at 293 and is followed in the top-10 by Sacramento State (296), Mercer (296), Georgia State (298), Rutgers (301) and Cal Poly (302). Upstate trails UConn by one stroke and is within four shots of a top-10 finish.
"We have a great deal of respect for the teams at the top of the leader board," said Upstate head coach Todd Lawton. "Baylor is a tremendous team and many of the top teams have a lot of experience playing in the NCAA Tournament and are top-25 teams, which is where we want to be someday. If we can pull out a top-10 finish with the caliber of teams in this tournament, it will be quite an accomplishment."
Individually, Michael Lawrence was the low Spartan on the day, turning in 73 and is tied for 12th. Josh Gallman battled to card a 74 and is tied for 24th heading into Tuesday's final round. Tyler Tucker finished the day with a 79, while Bryan Otis and Baxter Culler turned in scores of 80 and 81. Sacramento State's Scott DeBora shot a 1-under 71 to take a one-stroke lead in the final round Tuesday. Lawrence is just two strokes off of the lead.
"We haven't really faced the challenges like we have this week with not being able to play a practice round, the weather and the delays," said Lawton. "Overall, though, we were able to put together a couple of decent scores. We had a couple of shots I feel like we could have picked up with our three, four and five scores, but that wasn't going to move us that much up the leader board.
"The course is the most demanding course we have seen in our four years of competition. Some of the fairways were 25 yards wide. The second shots call for precise drives off of the tee just to be able to give yourself a chance for a decent second shot. This type of event incorporates everything that a top-level tournament is and we should be able learn a great deal from these conditions."
