KCAC

[Men's Golf] Golfers Move Up with Great Round 2 at S.C. Kansas Invitational

The Falcon men's golf team traveled to Winfield for the South Central Kansas Spring Invitational Monday and Tuesday, once again battling tough weather conditions in Round 1 before bouncing back in Round 2. A total of 11 teams and 71 golfers participated in the event.Friends was in 10th place after a score of 391 Monday in Round 1, but bounced back for a 339 in Round 2, the 6th best team score of the round. That allowed them to jump to an 8th place overall finish. Andrew Briggs (So., Jetmore, Kan.) shot a 78 on Tuesday, tied for the 8th best score of the day. Briggs and Kresten Trebbe (Fr., Augusta, Kan.) both finished with a total score of 179, tying them for 47th for the tournament.Head Coach Aaron Winter's comments:"Anymore, if we're playing in a tournament you can just assume that the weather is going to be terrible and this was no exception.  After it being 90 degrees on Saturday we went to play our practice round on Sunday and only finished about 8 holes because thunderstorms rolled in and it started to hail, with the temp going from 75 degrees to about 50 and the wind changing directions completely. "We had a 2-hour delay on Monday because of snow, and even then when we started to warm-up on the range there were still some snow flurries.  The conditions were terrible with it only being at the most 40 degrees when we started playing with a north wind of probably 30 mph.  To make matters worse the greens at Winfield Country Club are always really tricky and fast, and a north wind makes it even worse because they all seem to slope with the wind."The average score on Monday was slightly over 90, which is incredibly high for a college golf tournament.  Unfortunately, we were even higher than that.  About the only thing I can say positive about Monday was everyone finished the round.  I certainly don't envy the guys having to play in those conditions, but we were just not very good.  Our score of 391 on Monday was the highest score we've ever had and put us in 10th place and in a bad position going into the final round."Tuesday didn't start off very well either because Bradlee Perry was sick and not able to play, so we were down our player that shot the best score on Monday.  Fortunately it's about an hour drive to Winfield, so we had plenty of time talk about what we needed to do.  Basically I told the guys that Monday was over and now I needed to see the biggest improvement I've ever seen from one round to the next, and with Perry out they all knew they needed to give a little bit extra.  While we haven't always been consistent this year, we've done too many good things this season and played too many good rounds to let one bad round take that away."Thankfully the guys did it!  Of course the weather was much nicer, which helps, but the course still played very difficult and we had an opposite wind which made it even more challenging.  As a team we improved our score by 52 shots – the single largest turnaround we've ever had from one round to the next.  Every player improved by at least 13 shots and Andrew Briggs improved by 23, posting a 78 for the round (which was a top 10 score for the day).  We shot 339 on the day, the 6th best team score, and moved up from 10th place to 8th, so I was definitely pleased with how much they improved. "I can't say that I'm pleased with how we played because our scores aren't necessarily anything we should be proud of; however, it was great to see how they guys responded after Monday's round.  There was just a different vibe from them on Tuesday, everyone was hitting well on the range and we got off to a much better start.  On Monday bad things started happening and they just weren't able to keep their rounds together – on Tuesday, they didn't let the bad things happen, and that made all the difference on the world."Friends finishes their 2014 schedule with the KCAC Championship, which will be played at Buffalo Dunes in Garden City on April 21st and April 22nd.