The No. 11 Texas Tech men’s golf team has work to do after carding an 11-over 299 on Monday at the NCAA College Grove Regional, in College Grove, Tenn.
The Red Raiders started the round hot, as Fredrik Nilehn and Hannes Ronneblad each birdied the first two holes of the day, but both followed those scores with three consecutive bogeys to immediately halt momentum.
Tech evened out down the stretch of the front nine, as Ronneblad birdied Nos. 6 and 7, but Nilehn and Hurly Long each bogeyed No. 7 to cancel those out. Tech made the turn at 3-over to the back nine, which seemed to be playing easier early in the day.
However, The Red Raiders only mustered four birdies on the final nine holes combined, two of which came on No. 18. That, combined with 12 bogeys and two double bogeys, dropped the Red Raiders to 11-over on the round, in 12th place.
“We didn’t play that bad on the front side and we turned at a decent number, but on the back nine we made some sloppy mistakes and did things you can’t do if you want to have a good round,” Texas Tech head coach Greg Sands said.
No. 2 Vanderbilt (-9) leads the way, and Clemson (E) holds the coveted fifth-place spot, which is required to advance to nationals, meaning Tech is 11 shots back of the cutline. Before the Red Raiders got into the clubhouse, the gap was as high as 15 shots before the rest of the field came to the difficult closing holes on the course.
Individually, Ronneblad was the lone Red Raider under par, getting a birdie on the last to shoot a 1-under 71, tied for 14th overall. Long (+2) is 34th, Nilehn (+4) is 45th, Ivan Ramirez (+6) is in 59th and Federico Zucchetti (+8) is in 69th.
“We wish we could have that round back, but we can’t,” Sands said. “However, I’m still confident in the guys. We have 36 holes to play, and sometimes team golf is deceiving. You can have two or three guys have bad rounds on the same day like we did today, but you can follow it up with two or three guys playing great the next day.”
Tech is scheduled to begin round two Tuesday at 8:55 a.m., going off the 10th tee, paired with Missouri and Lipscomb.
Golfstat will handle live scoring all three days. For live on-site updates, follow the Red Raiders on Twitter at @TTUMensGolf, and like them on Facebook at Facebook.com/TTUMensGolf.
