Tide Within Reach of Making Cut at NCAA Golf Championships
6/2/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
 |
|
OWINGS MILLS, MD. – Friday’s third round of the 2005 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships is cut day. The field of 30 teams will be trimmed to 15 by Friday night as the top 15 low round teams and six individuals advance on to one final round on Saturday. It will be in that final round that from among those 15 teams will emerge the national champions.
After 36 holes of play, the University of Alabama is within reach of making the cut. Alabama is among a tie at 17th, carding 291-293/584. Currently Oklahoma State, the nation’s No. 1 ranked team, is on the cut line at 15th just three strokes ahead of Alabama.
“My guys played their tails off today,” said Alabama head golf coach Jay Seawell. “This is a tough course. You can tell that by the scores. My guys played hard. They didn’t play great, but they left it all on the golf course. Tomorrow (Friday) will be a big day for us. If we want to play on Saturday, we have to play well tomorrow, and we came here with the intent to still be playing on Saturday. It’s definitely within our reach. And if we can put together two good rounds in a row, we can have a good finish on Saturday, which is certainly our goal.”
For the second straight day, freshman Mark Harrell produced Alabama’s low round. At No. 21 overall, Harrell finished two over par, 72, on Thursday in a round where he opened his play with a birdie on No. 10 but turned at two over par after bogeying holes 16, 17 and 18, all par fours. He turned and finished out his day by paring all nine of his remaining holes.
Clint Provost shot 73 Thursday and is T-57th. He shot par on all of his first nine holes, turned, bogeyed No. 1, then birdied holes No. 2 and No. 5. In all, Provost bogeyed five holes (1, 4, 6, 8 and 9).
Joseph Sykora also carded 73 with birdies on holes No. 9 and 14 and bogeys on 1, 8, 12, 17 and 18. He’s T-70th.
Thomas Hagler finished his second round at five over par, 75, and is T-106th. He birdied the par four No. 2 hole and the par 5 No. 7 hole. Hagler bogeyed holes 3, 6, 12, 14 and 15 and double bogeyed No. 13, a par 5.
And Gator Todd shot 77 in a round that included double bogeys at par four holes 6 and 11. Todd birdied holes No. 2 and 17 and bogeyed 1, 10, 13, 14 and 16. He’s T-118th.
There were no under par team scores in the second round on the par 70 Caves Valley Golf Club course, and Georgia, the leader, is the only team in the red. The Bulldogs, who opened play at six under par on Wednesday, are two under par after two rounds (274-284-558) after shooting four over par Thursday. Georgia leads Tennessee by nine strokes. The Vols are in second at seven over (279-288/567). At third is Georgia Tech (569), followed by Southern Cal (572), UNLV, Duke, Georgia State and Washington (574), Augusta State and Brigham Young (575), Arizona State (576), Arizona (578), Florida and Wake Forest (580), Oklahoma State (581), Kentucky (583), Alabama, SMU, Georgia Southern and Arkansas (584), Coastal Carolina (585), Missouri (586), San Diego State (587), Stanford (588), New Mexico (589), Tulsa and Texas A&M (592), Texas (595), Purdue (598) and UCLA (600).
Pepperdine All-American Michael Putnam shot 67 to slip ahead of Augusta State All-American Major Manning for the tournament’s two-round lead. Putman is at six under (67-67/134), Manning at five under (65-70/135). Defending NCAA Champion and U.S. Amateur champion Ryan Moore of UNLV, a favorite going in to successfully defend his title, will likely not pull off the feat. He goes into the third round at five over par and in a tie for 48th, this coming just weeks after he finished 13th at the Masters.
