LSU Men’s Golf Struggles At NCAA Championships, But “We’ve Got Tons Of Firepower,” Says Coach Jake Amos

TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES

The old adage “golf is hard” proved to be very true Friday afternoon for the No. 7 LSU men’s golf team as it was unable to get anything going in the right direction in the first round of the NCAA Championships at the OMNI La Costa Resort course in Carlsbad, California.

Scheduled for the favorable late-early wave of golfers after earning the seventh seed, the Tigers found themselves not only starting on the difficult back nine, but also playing the round in a gusty west wind. In the end, they faced some of the toughest holes statistically on the golf course and find themselves in a tie for 28th at 15-over par 303 going into Saturday.

Nine teams finished the day under par with No. 30 UCLA, playing in the morning wave, leading the competition at 8-under par 280. No 1 Auburn at 4-under par 284 is second with No. 14 Pepperdine third at 285. The first cut line number after one round that LSU will begin the day shooting for is 4-over 292.

“We had a really bad stretch for about six holes in our first nine holes,” LSU coach Jake Amos said. “Nothing good comes when you make doubles and triples. It’s not like us. We haven’t really done that all year. I just told the guys there are two positives. We did it on day one, and we did it in the afternoon. So, we’ve got to flip our mindset, be positive. We’ve got tons of firepower. We can have a bad round and then have a good round, so that’s the goal.”

LSU Men’s Golf Team Begins Quest For Another National Title On Friday At NCAA Championships

Three players lead the individual competition after one round at 6-under 66.

The Tigers were 11-over par after nine holes and looking to get things going on the front nine to conclude their round. LSU came in at 4-over on the front nine holes. The Tigers had 3-over-par rounds of 75 from junior Jay Mendell and senior Matty Dodd-Berry. Freshman Dan Hayes came in at 4-over 76, and sophomore Arni Sveinsson finished at 5-over 77. Junior Noah McWilliams had a 6-over 78.

Mendell had four birdies on the day, as did McWilliams, and Sveinsson posted 1-under on the final nine holes.

LSU will have a chance to get back into competition for the top 15 first-cut after play on Sunday. The Tigers were scheduled to tee off at 9:25 a.m. central time Saturday on the first tee. There is expected to be very little wind for the first three hours of the Tigers’ round. LSU will again play with Ole Miss and South Carolina.

Live scoring is available at Scoreboard.clippd.com. Live coverage on Babygrande through GolfChannel.com begins at 2:30 p.m.

NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship
Carlsbad, California – OMNI La Costa Resort & Spa North Course
Round 1 Team Results (Par 288)
(NCAA/Scoreboard Rank in Parenthesis)

1 UCLA (No. 30) – 280 -8
2 Auburn (No. 1) – 284 -4
3 Pepperdine (No. 14) – 285 -3
T4 Duke (No. 29) – 286 -2
T4 San Diego (No. 42) – 286 -2
T6 Texas (No. 3) – 287 -1
T6 Arizona (No. 12) – 287 -1
T6 North Carolina (No. 10) – 287 -1
T6 Vanderbilt (No. 11) – 287 -1
T10 Virginia (No. 4) – 288 E
T10 Arkansas (No. 6) – 288 E
T12 Stanford (No. 15) – 291 +3
T12 Florida (No. 2) – 291 +3
T12 Arizona State (No. 13) – 291 +3
T15 Tennessee (No. 16) – 292 +4
T15 Georgia (No. 23) – 292 +4
T15 Oklahoma (No. 18) – 292 +4
T18 Chattanooga – 294 +6
T18 Louisville (No. 13) – 294 +6
T20 Oklahoma State (No. 5) – 295 +7
T20 Arkansas State (No. 39) – 295 +7
T22 Purdue (No. 40) – 296 +8
T22 BYU (No. 22) – 296 +8
24 Southern California (No. 28) – 297 +9
25 Mississippi State (No. 37) – 298 +10
26 Texas A&M (No. 20) – 299 +11
27 Memphis – 301 +13
T28 LSU (No. 7) – 303 +15
T28 Ole Miss (No. 9) – 303 +15
30. Florida State (no. 26) – 307 +19

Individual Top 10 (Par 72)
T1 Ian Maspat, San Diego (No. 66) – 66 -6
T1 Connor Williams, Arizona State (No. 54) – 66 -6
T1 William Jennings, Alabama (No. 6) – 66 -6
4 Baylor Larrabee, UCLA (No. 90) – 67 -5
T5 Luke Potter, Texas (No. 7) – 68 -4
T5 Ben James, Virginia (No. 2) – 68 -4
T5 Filip Jakubcik, Arizona (No. 17) – 68 -4
T5 Malan Potgieter, Louisiana (No. 33) – 68 -4
T9 Six tied at – 69 -3

LSU Scores
T92 Matthew Dodd-Berry – 75 +3
T92 Jay Mendell – 75 +3
T101 Dan Hayes – 76 +4
T116 Arni Sveinsson – 77 +5
T130 Noah McWilliams – 78 +6