The men’s golf team finished fourth in the Wolfpack Spring Open at Lonnie Poole Golf Course Sunday, finishing at 28-over, 14 strokes off Richmond, which won the tournament at 14-over. The 12-team tournament featured teams from all around the east coast, including North Carolina, Maryland, George Mason and Old Dominion.
Before any tornado actually touched down in the Triangle area on Saturday, Mother Nature played a pivotal role in the tournament. The Wolfpack had a late tee time, which led to harsh playing conditions, most notably, up to 35-mph wind gusts. And those rough conditions showed up in State’s scoring as it shot a 306 as team, third worst on the day.
“No one played well. We really got a bad draw yesterday,” senior Brandon Detweiler said. “We teed off later and there were no low scores. The weather was horrible, winds were blowing 20-30 miles per hour.
“Heck a tornado came through two hours after we finished playing. But all the low scores where early and it was just really difficult yesterday.”
And those conditions Saturday all but eliminated the team’s chances to win its home tournament, and any home court advantage the players had going into their rounds on Saturday
“The first round the conditions were bad,” freshman Albin Choi said. “It was so different it almost felt like we didn’t have a home course advantage. It was anybody’s game out there and we all played bad.”
However, head coach Richard Sykes believes the conditions are not an excuse for the team’s poor performance on its home course.
“We were within 45-minutes of the people playing early and the wind was the same all day long,” Sykes said. “You just have to compliment the other team for playing really well.”
State battled back into contention in the final round, as it shot the second lowest score of the day with a 6-over, good enough to catapulted the team up three spots to its forth place finish. However, the team didn’t seem very pleased at its efforts.
“There is no easy way of saying it,” Choi said. “We just couldn’t execute the shots and couldn’t play well overall as a team or as individuals.”
Leading the way for the Pack individually was Choi and sophomore Mitchell Sutton who finished in a tie for seventh place and a tie for thirteenth place. Detweiler, junior Mark McMillen and junior Chad Day rounded out the Pack’s team as they finished tied for 19th, tied for 27th and 68th, respectively.
Day’s final standing was worse than it actually looked as the junior was disqualified from the first round after he signed his score card incorrectly.
After finishing the eighth hole, Day’s playing partner wrote down an incorrect score of bogey instead of double-boggy and Day overlooked the error and signed his card before he could correct it, causing his round to be disqualified.
Sykes said the error was unfortunate, but knew there was nothing that could be done about it.
“He didn’t notice it and I don’t think he spent much time with it; he signed it and end of the story,” Sykes said. “So now Carl Peterson, who signed an incorrect score card in 2001 is off the hook. It will now be a Chad instead of a Carl.”
With the Wolfpack Spring Open over, State now has a week to prepare for the ACC Championships at Old North State Country Club in New London, N.C. But the team knows it has a lot to work on if it hopes to be in contention for it.
“It will be my first time playing the conference championship. But the ACC is a strong conference, so we definitely need to play well if we want to have a shot at winning,” Choi said. “Everyone just needs to learn from this week and learn from their mistakes and tune up there games for next week.”