No. 18 Men's Golf near the top of leaderboard after round one in Hawaii
11/3/2017 10:34:00 PM | Men's Golf
LAHAINA, Hawaii – The 18th-ranked Kent State Men's Golf Team and the rest of the top programs in the Ka'anapali Collegiate Classic took advantage of perfect conditions on Friday in a first round filled with red numbers.
The 18th-ranked Golden Flashes shot a 12-under-par 272 on the 6,700-yard, par-71 Ka'anapali Golf Course, finishing the day in fifth place behind only No. 15 California (18-under), No. 12 LSU (16-under), and No. 40 South Carolina (-16 under). Of the 21 teams in the field, 14 finished the day under par.
"It was a perfect day in paradise," said Kent State head coach Herb Page. "Ka'anapali's defenses were down. The temperature was between 85 and 90 degrees. There was no wind. It was the most perfect conditions you could ever find. And we did a good job. We could have made more putts…and we weren't great (chipping) out of the Bermuda rough, but we made a lot of birdies."
The combined 25 birdies by the Flashes' quintet of Ian Holt, Chase Johnson, Bjarki Petursson, Gisli Sveinbergsson, and Chris Doody ranked No. 2 in the field.
Holt finished the day in a tie for sixth place, individually, after carding a 5-under-par 66. Johnson and Petursson both shot 68 to share 20th place. Sveinbergsson (70) and Doody (72) will begin Saturday's second round in ties for 45th and 65th place.
"Our guys really did a great job on the par 5s," said Page. "All five made birdie at the first hole. On the sixth, we had four birdies and an eagle… Chase had the eagle, making a 35-foot putt with 10 feet of break that was down-grain and downhill."
The weather forecast for Saturday is calling for trade winds to blow in. If that happens, scoring conditions will be more difficult.
"Those trade winds were supposed to blow in Friday, though, and it didn't happen," said Page. "You can see on the leaderboard that it's very tight with a lot of teams at 8-or-9-under. On Saturday, we'll just keep trying to fire at pins, make a lot of birdies again, and keep going low."
You can follow the scoring in round two on Golfstat.com.
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