Troy University Athletics
Slow Start Costs Trojans Monday
4/19/2010 10:00:00 PM | Golf (W)
MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. - Missed putts and ill-advised approach shots costs the Troy University women's golf team a shot at being in the final group to go out on Tuesday, as the Trojans shot a 20-over par 308 in the opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Women's Golf Championships.
The Trojans started the day off rough through the first five holes, but were able to come back over the next 13 to finish just eight-over par and give themselves a chance going into the final two rounds of the tournament.
“I thought the course was out there for us to play well,” Troy head coach Matt Terry said. “ We just got off to a poor start over the first few holes, we were 12-over par through six and that just put us behind the eight ball. We finished eight-over after that and made some mistakes coming in by just hitting the ball in the wrong spots off the tee. That made us have to lay out, or not even be able to hit the shot because of going in the water.
“We had a total of six balls in the water, and you just can't do that in a conference championship. The girls made some good things happen throughout the day. We are a pretty good ways behind Denver, but we are only eight shots out of second place right now. That is something we can look toward on Tuesday, to get us into a spot where we can move up the ladder and see what we can do.”
The Trojans will enter the second round in eighth place, but not far off from the second place team in FIU - with whom the Trojans played with on Monday. Troy will enter the second round with an opponent that played with on Monday in Florida Atlantic (seventh place), and an opponent with whom played in front of the Trojans on Monday in Arkansas State (ninth place).
Although the Trojans struggled in the early going, one player was able to turn the play around and come up big for the team in the opening round.
After knocking down a par putt on the opening hole, senior Kaley Branton struggled over the next few holes to record a bogey on each of the next two. She was able to turn it around on the par-four fifth hole and set the stage for the rest of the day.
“It was nice to see,” Terry said. “She stuffed it on the first hole and made par, and then she just made some little mistakes on the next few holes to make her bogies. She settled in and started playing well, and 76 is a pretty good round. She was four-over after five holes before turning it around for the rest of the round, and seeing her get after it was nice to see. Hopefully she can get off to a good start tomorrow, and keep it going all day just like the rest of the girls. She went out there and played well today, and hopefully she can go out there and shoot par or better tomorrow.”
Branton will go out first for the Trojans on Tuesday morning at 8:05 am on the Schoolmaster Course at Robert Trent Jones.
Although Branton caught the eye of her head coach, it was sophomore Haley Lawrence who got the eye of everyone else in the tournament with the only eagle of the opening round.
The sophomore from Prattville hit a tee shot left and found the rough. However, the ball hopped out of the rough before bouncing off of something in the rough and kicking out into the short grass. From there, Lawrence hit a 5-wood from 198 yards out and left the ball on the front edge of the green, about 50 feet from the cup. The sophomore calmly stepped over the ball and knocked down the putt, using the back of the cup for an added advantage to record the eagle.
That was accomplished on a hole in which the Trojans examined throughly in Sunday's practice round due to the difficulty.
“The tee shot gets you started and you have to trust your site line,” Terry said. “You get up there and you can't see anything from the tee box. You have mounds on the left and some tall grass, and you have to hope to hit down the side and get a good kick out onto the fairway. After that, you can lay it up and hit a bogey which is what Sofia (Bjorkman) did. It was a tough lie on the lip of the bunker, but then you have someone like Haley that holes out for an eagle. So it is an up-and-down hole, and we played it pretty well. Overall if we can get five puts for par on all the par-fives then we will be doing pretty well.”
The other shot that stands out for the Trojans was the putt from Desirae Zine on the fourth hole. After hitting her second shot to the back of the green, about 35 feet from the cup, the senior calmly stepped over the ball and knocked the putt down for a birdie.
According to Terry, the only other hole that he thought could have given the Trojans problems was the par-four 14th hole. The hole is laid out to challenge the players to hit over the water to the green, as the fairway is elevated on the left. However, the ball does not feed back off the left which causes the players to have to hit off the hill and downhill toward the cup. Add in the green, which if missed funnels back into the water; and it is one of the toughest holes on the course.
“We played it fairly well,” Terry said. “We had four putts for birdie and made one, and then we had some other close putts and missed one. We had one double bogey on that hole and that started with a bad tee shot and went from there. For the most part we played it really well.”
Terry believes that if they turn around and play the easier holes better in the second round, that his team will have a chance to move up the leaderboard heading into the final round on Wednesday.
“We played some of the tough holes better than we though we could have,” he said. “We played eight really well with no miss there, as there are bunkers long and water short. We had a lot of good birdie looks there. We seemed to be pretty confident, but we just have to clean up the little things on the easier holes to give us a chance. If we can break 300 tomorrow then we should be in the hunt for the final round on Wednesday.”
The Trojans hit the course with the second group going out on Tuesday morning, with live stats provided by the Sun Belt Conference.
