Junior golfer David Cooke tees off of the 12th hole at Lonnie Poole Golf Course Monday, October 6, 2014 during round one of the Wolfpack Intercollegiate. Cooke finished round one tied for 8th place with a score of even. Photo by Ryan Parry.
Lonnie Poole Golf course played host to the Wolfpack Intercollegiate tournament on Monday and Tuesday, with NC State finishing in first place among the 18-team field with a combined score of 846 (-6). The Wolfpack was the only team to finish under par.
Wolfpack junior David Cooke tied for first for the Pack with a combined score of 208 (-5). The first-place finish is the first in the Bolingbrook, Illinois, native’s career, and marks the 87th time in program history that an NC State golfer has finished first in a competition.
After the final round, NCSU Athletics asked Cooke about his first win.
“It’s great,” Cooke said. “I just hung around all day yesterday [day one], and I knew I wasn’t at the top of the leaderboard, but if I just hung around in the mix, and played a good round today [day 2], that I would have a good chance.”
Going into the final round, Cooke was three strokes behind East Tennessee State junior Adrian Meronk. Cooke shot a career-high 67 on the final round, while Meronk shot a 70, leaving them tied at first for the entire tournament.
Other Wolfpack member’s scores include junior Carter Page 215 (T11), redshirt sophomore Stanhope Johnson 216 (T15), sophomore Jacob McBride 222 (T33), and redshirt senior James Chapman 222 (T33).
McBride had the single-best round of anyone at the tournament with a 65 (-6) on the second round, which is now his career best while at NC State.
As a team, East Tennessee State finished second with a score of 855 (+3), and East Carolina University finished third with a score of 863 (+11).
After the first day of the tournament, the Wolfpack positioned itself in first place with a team score of 566 (-2), and finished three strokes ahead of East Tennessee State 569 (+1).
In the second round, the Pack turned it up a notch and scored a 280 (-4) to pull away from East Tennessee State, which shot a 286 (+2).
“This is big for the team,” Cooke said, “We’ve proved to ourselves that we can win and finish tournaments under par. Going forward, we know we have the guys who can produce team victories, and that’s big for us.”
With the exception of McBride, this is the same team that competed in the 2013 Wolfpack Intercollegiate tournament. In last year’s tournament, State finished third with a score of 865 (+1). This year’s team improved with a score of 846 (-6).
Cooke greatly improved his score from last year’s tournament with scores of 220 (+4) in 2013 and a score of 208 (-5) in this year’s tournament.
In his third round, Cooke was able to cash in five birdies while only having one bogey on the day. Johnson also finished strong with five birdies in his final round with only two bogeys.