Lobos jump to 5th place tie at Tucker Invitational
UNM bounces back from rough first round with 20-shot improvement
Buoyed by a strong second round from Galven Green and Sam Choi, the New Mexico men’s golf team made a big run up the leaderboard Friday to recover from the morning’s poor start in the 17-team William H. Tucker Invitational.
The Lobos finished the day with a 2-under 574 at the UNM Championship Course, bouncing up to a fifth-place tie, 11 strokes behind leader UNLV entering today’s final round. New Mexico shaved 20 strokes over its opening round score.
“They kept themselves in a position to have a good tournament,” UNM coach Glen Millican said. “Which after 18 holes, we were pretty far out of everything. Going into (today), we just need to play the South Course. We don’t need to play the Tucker. We were playing the Tucker this morning and trying to win it on the fourth hole or the 10th hole. And when you try to do that, you can for sure lose a golf tournament early, but you can’t win it early.”
Choi shot a 4-under 76 to go with his opening-round par 72 to sit in fifth, five strokes behind UNLV’s Harry Hall. Hall finished his round with three straight birdies, surging into the individual lead with a 9-under 135.
“I play relaxed,” Choi said of his second-round improvement. “First round, I had the passion to make some birdies going on and during the second round, I just
enjoyed and played with my buddies and had fun. I was a little more relaxed.”
Like his team, Green struggled in the morning, shooting a 4-over 76, but rebounded with a 6-under 66. Augustín Holé carded a 3-under 69 in the afternoon to make up for a morning 78.
“It was a good comeback,” said Green, who is tied for eighth with a 2-under 142. “I struggled a bit in the morning. But I got more comfortable. Coach kind of and calmed me down as well so that was good.”
Green and Choi attributed their improvement to better play on the greens.
“My putting was just not great,” said Green. “I was trying to play around too much with the ball. In the second round, I wasn’t thinking much and just going up and hitting it.”
New Mexico was in 11th place after the opening round with a 7-over 297, 18 strokes behind the Rebels with no Lobos shooting under par.
“It was definitely a rough morning round,” Millican said.
It was the type of start that could have sank the whole day, he said.
“When you get off to a start like that, if you play bad in the first round then we have some hard holes to start the second round,” Millican said. “You have to be on top of it, No. 1, to have a chance to turn it around and No, 2, to not let it get it out of control. They did a good job of playing well (Friday) afternoon.”
New Mexico State, led by Cameron Gambini’s 2-under 142, finished ninth with a 9-over 585.
“We play like we always do, there’s good, and then we have some lapses a little bit and have some dumb mental mistakes,” said Aggies coach Mike Dirks. “And then we come back and hang in there. We have a team that I think in the end will be good with more experience. We just have to get out there and play and keep learning, and I think they want to do that.”