No. 2 Men’s Golf tied for 12th after round one at NCAA Championship

Friday, May 27

Eugene Country Club - Eugene, Ore.

All day

University of Texas

NCAA Championship

No. 2 Men’s Golf tied for 12th after round one at NCAA Championship

05.27.2016 | Men's Golf

Junior Beau Hossler leads the Longhorns after firing a first-round 70.

EUGENE, Ore. — No. 2 Texas Men's Golf carded a first-round 289 during the first round of the NCAA Championship to finish the day in a tie for 12^th at Eugene Country Club on Friday.

Junior Beau Hossler carded an even 70 on the first day to tie for 16^th, just three strokes back from the leader.

Hossler started the round with a birdie on 10's par-4 and stayed 1-under par until making a double-bogey on 14. He fired back with a birdie on 15, made a bogey on 17 and bookended the back nine with another birdie on 18 to make the turn at even par. On the front nine, Hossler made a bogey on two, but returned to even par with a birdie on four's par-4. After another bogey on seven, he finished the round with a birdie on 18 to conclude the day at even par.

Hossler finished the round with five birdies, the second-highest number of any player in the field.

Sophomore Scottie Scheffler carded a first-round 72 at 2-over par.

After a slow start that included four bogeys and one birdie on the back nine, Scheffler made all pars on the front nine before he chipped in for birdie on hole six. He finished the round with pars to conclude the day in a tie for 52^nd.

Sophomore Doug Ghim finished the round 3-over par after making two birdies and five bogeys.

Ghim made two bogeys on the back nine to start the day, but made a birdie on hole one to start the front nine. He followed with a bogey on two, but made another birdie on four to stand at 1-over par. He made two more bogeys and closed the round with two pars for a 73.

Sophomore Taylor Funk closed the round 4-over par for the Longhorns with three birdies, five bogeys and one double bogey.

Funk also started a little slow with three bogeys on the back nine, but fired back on the front nine with three birdies on holes two, four and five. He followed with two bogeys and double-bogey on seven for a 74.

Junior Gavin Hall fired a first-round 75 behind two birdies, five bogeys and one double-bogey. Both of Hall's birdies came on the front nine, including one on eight's par-4 to end the round birdie-par.

Texas sits seven strokes behind leaders Arkansas and TCU, who both carded a 282 on the first day. San Diego State's Nahum Mendoza, South Carolina's Will Starke and Vanderbilt's Theo Humphrey lead the field at 3-under par.

The Horns will tee off at 9 a.m. CT on Saturday, May 28 for the second round with Stanford and USC.

Post-Round Comments

Head Coach John Fields

On the round: I think the biggest challenge at the National Championship is the anticipation, getting started, you want to go out there and do your best. I think our guys just got off to a bit of a slow start, but then weathered the storm and got a solid round in. A 289 isn't a great round, but it wasn't horrible. I think getting up at 7 a.m. in the morning tomorrow will be helpful. We need to do some work right now on the range and on the putting green and then get ready for tomorrow.

On the afternoon start: The difficulty in a National Championship is you have 30 teams, so you have teams that play in the morning the first day and then play in the afternoon on the second day. We played in the afternoon, earning that spot throughout the year, getting the 12:20 start on hole number 10 is a reward to the teams that played the best. Then you get the early-morning start, typically that gives you a little bit of momentum going into the second day. It's different from any tournament we play in, because you've got 30 teams and two different starts. We just need to go out there and play the kind of golf that we can play and go out there and enjoy ourselves and have a good round.

Sophomore Doug Ghim

On the course from the practice round to the first round: It played pretty similar. The course is difficult--you don't really know how it's going to play until you really get out there. It was nice to get a feel for it in competition and I expect that we will play a lot better tomorrow.

On the course: It's heavily tree-lined, so a lot of the tee shots were a little more intimidating than we are used to, but now that we have two rounds under our belts, especially after today, we will be able to see the shots that we have to make.

On how they will prepare for tomorrow's round: Nothing different from any other tournament. It's a quick turnaround because we play early tomorrow morning, but we realize that it's a good opportunity to play well, because the conditions are a little bit more benign in the morning. We will just get some rest and some food and I think we will be ready to go.

Sophomore Taylor Funk

On how he played in relation to his expectations: Definitely a little worse. We knew what we are capable of on this course. I got off to a decent start with a bunch of pars, then caught a couple of bad breaks in the middle there with some bogeys. I started to bring it back, then got another bad break and hit a ball that got stuck in a tree, so you don't really plan on those. My game is solid, I just have to get better breaks and keep it going.

On the course: You definitely have to be below the hole, but you have to be on the right level. The greens are really tricky. Once you get in a good spot off the tee, it's still an intimidating course because the greens are all over the place. If I keep driving it well and giving myself a good chance for birdies, I think I'll do alright.

On their mindset: Tomorrow morning we won't have wind and there will be fresh greens. It will be very scorable in the morning. We know what we are capable of as a team. We have had seven wins this season and that's not out of luck. I think we will come out tomorrow and hopefully make a lot of birdies.

NCAA Championship

Round One

Eugene Country Club (Par 70, 7,014 yards)

Team Leaderboard

T1. Arkansas 282 (+2)

T1. TCU 282 (+2)

T3. San Diego State 283 (+3)

T3. Southern California 283 (+3)

T3. Vanderbilt 283 (+3)

T6. Oklahoma State 285 (+5)

T6. Florida State 285 (+5)

T8. LSU 286 (+6)