The Texas A&M men’s golf team sits in second place following Thursday’s opening round of the John Burns Intercollegiate at Wailua Golf Course.
“If you just look at what place we’re in, it seems like we did pretty good today,” Texas A&M head coach J.T. Higgins said. “We really had it going and were playing some great golf but then the wind picked up. It got a little tougher and we didn’t handle that adversity very well leading us to give up a lot of shots coming in. I think we were seven-over on our last three holes and that’s the difference between competing for a championship and just hoping to get a high finish.”
The Aggies (283, -5) stand 13 shots back of the pace set by UNLV, which paces the 20-team leaderboard at 18-under par. North Carolina (-4), BYU (-4), St. Mary’s [CA] (-3) and Utah (-3) round out the top six schools in the team standings.
Individually, a trio of Aggies [Josh Gliege, Chandler Phillips and Brandon Smith] each carded rounds of three-under par (69) Monday to close the day with a share of seventh place. Smith is competing in the event as an individual.
“I’m really proud of Chandler and Josh, they both put together really solid rounds,” Higgins added. “Brandon was right there with them, shooting a 69 as an individual.”
Freshman Walker Lee (71, -1) also turned in an opening round under par to hold a share of 18th place, while sophomore Dan Erickson (74, +2) and senior Andrew Paysse (76, +4) rounded out the A&M lineup in ties for 46th and 69th, respectively.
Joining Smith competing apart from the A&M lineup, A&M rookie Reese Ramsey (77, +5) is tied for 88th after 18 holes.
“We’ve got two more rounds to go and we’ve really got to play our best golf tomorrow to give ourselves a chance to move up the leaderboard and win the tournament,” Higgins said.
