Conventional wisdom would suggest a cold-weather club golf team would have an advantage today at Crystal Springs Resort.
Apparently the North Carolina State club team didn’t get the memo.
After the first 18 holes of play at the NCCGA National Championship, the Wolfpack lead by one-stroke over No. 1 Wisconsin and are four ahead of Michigan State in third place.
Constant on-and-off rain coupled with high winds forced players to make different adjustments on every hole, and N.C. State proved to be unfazed as all five players scores that counted totaled 79 or lower at Ballyowen.
N.C. State club President Zach Lewis said the weather wasn’t the only change from the normal for his team.
“It was definitely a change of pace coming from the South, we don’t get to see many links-style courses,” Lewis said. “Also, we don’t get to see the weather conditions we saw today. Normally it stays warm and we don’t see the change in conditions that quick. It was changing all the time and we always had to adjust.”
With such a tight leaderboard at the top, N.C. State will have little margin for error tomorrow at Wild Turkey. Seventeen teams are within 11 strokes of the leader and with the scoring opportunities to be had on both courses, anything can happen.
“We feel a little bit of pressure,” Lewis said. “This is our fifth-straight Nationals appearance so we have been here before, but we haven’t been in this situation. Now coming as a wild card, we are not used to being in the lead too much.”
The individual leaderboard is just as packed as the team board, if not more.
Seven players finished at even par to create a logjam at the top with a whole slew of players right behind them at plus-one, two and three.
The seven players that finished at even par are listed below:
- Eric Goebel – Michigan State
- Zach Henry – JMU
- Spencer Kuhn – Pittsburgh
- Andrew Paisley – Az. State
- Tyler Regueyra – Cincinnati
- Mason Short – West Virginia
- Anthony Syrko – Texas A&M
Be sure to follow @NCCGA and @NCCGAPresident for live updates tomorrow. Live scoring can be accessed at www.nextgengolf.org/nationals-scores.
Looking back to the team competition, sleeping on the lead always carries a little extra burden on that team. Lewis said it will be a low-key night for the Wolfpack, with hopes of replicating today’s success on the final 18 holes tomorrow.
“I think we will go eat as a team and talk about what happened today. We actually have a couple of guys that have an exam on Monday so they’ll be studying and just keeping our minds off golf, I think that is the best thing to do instead of mulling over everything. Just be ready to do it again tomorrow.”
NOTES FROM TODAY’S ROUND
• All seven players currently tied for first-place played on the Ballyowen course on day one.
• There are a total of 35 players at or better than 3-over par after 18-holes of play.
• Tournament leader NC State has three players in the top-26, but no player finishing higher than eighth on day one.
• North Caroline State finished in 16th Championship at the Barefoot Resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C., failing to score lower than 400 as a team on either day of competition. David Prevatte was the low scorer on the team shooting 79-74-153 for a share of 13th overall.
• Wisconsin – currently in second-place by one stroke – finished 21st semester’s Championship shooting a team total of 831. Matt Fromelt was the low man on the team shooting 88-76-164.
***Dave Uhrmacher (@DaveUhrm) is the NCCGA Director of Communications. Chase Russell (@NCCGAPresident) also contributed to this report.
