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9/15/2006 ROCKY FACE, Ga. — The Vanderbilt men’s golf team opened the Tom Shaw era by posting a two-over-par 290 in the opening round of the Carpet Capital Collegiate at The Farm Golf Club. The Commodores stand in a tie for ninth place in the tournament’s 18-team field after the first of three days of action at the 54-hole event. Sophomore Jon Curran led the Commodores with a two-under 70 to tie for 13th place out of 90 competitors. With Vanderbilt starting its first round on the 10th hole, Curran was off to a quick start after birdies on 12 and 15. He would bogey the 17th hole and repeat his two-birdie, one-bogey trend on the front side to finish at two-under. Freshman Hudson Johnson, making his first collegiate appearance, used four birdies against only three bogeys to card Vanderbilt’s other under-par round. After finishing the backside at even par, Johnson would birdie the second hole and par out to tally a first-round score of 71 and end day one in a tie for 19th place. Senior Luke List registered three birdies during his round, but carded a double bogey on his second-to-late hole (No. 8) to finish with a one-over 73. Transfer Billy Whalen had an up-and-down round posting four birdies and 10 pars. He sandwiched a trio of birdies on holes 14-16 between a pair of double bogeys on 13 and 17. Whalen’s four-over 76 was Vanderbilt’s highest counting score, with junior Brett Lange posting 13 pars and five bogeys to register a plus-five 77. Individually, North Carolina State’s Darren Blair holds a one-stroke lead over Clemson’s Vince Hatfield through the first round. In the team competition, Alabama scored a 12-under 276 to lead Clemson by two strokes. North Carolina State and Georgia State round out the top four, with four teams — Augusta State, Wake Forest, Duke and Georgia Tech — tied for fifth at one-over. Vanderbilt sits in a three-way tie with Tennessee and East Tennessee State at two-over. The tournament field includes nine teams that closed the 2005-06 season in the nation’s Top 20, including No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Florida and No. 4 Georgia Tech. Second round play at the Carpet Capital begins at 7:30 a.m. CT on Saturday, with live scoring available on the Internet at http://www.golfstatresults.com/. |
