Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Men’s golf finishes second at Old Memorial in Florida
By Jordan Blum
Staff Reporter

The men’s golf team took its No. 1 national Golfweek/Sagarin performance index rating into the Gary Koch/Cleveland Golf Intercollegiate at Old Memorial Golf Course in Tampa, Fla. and left with second place Tuesday.

The team finished with a three-round score of 869 (5-over-par) to tie North Florida but finished behind tournament host and defending national champion Florida (843).
Head coach Bill Montigel said he was happy with the team’s play and has seen the team improving steadily over the past few weeks.

“I thought we played really well and we’re getting better all the time and getting a lot of guys under par,” Montigel said. “This (golf course) was a lot harder than last week at the Red River (Classic) and we still scored a lot of birdies.”

The Frogs had three top-20 finishers, led by junior Adam Rubinson’s tie for third place. It was his third straight top-10 tournament finish and added to his No. 7 national ranking.

Senior Andy Doeden, who finished in ninth place in the individual standings (212) and is rated 27th nationally, said once everyone in the lineup plays to their potential they’ll be hard to stop.

“I’ve been getting better each week and the team has been getting (better) each week,” Doeden said. “Once we start getting good scores from top to bottom with the four and five spots, which they’re capable of doing, we’ll be really tough to beat.”

Montigel said he was pleased with the play of freshman J.J. Killeen and his 18th place overall finish in the tournament. Killeen has two finishes in the top 20 in just three career tournaments.

“(Killeen) has been really solid for us so far this year and has done a great job of stepping right in for us and contributing,” Montigel said.

Montigel said a lack of practice time and experience on the course were factors in the final results.

“We played really well considering it was our first time on the course,” Montigel said. “We only got to play nine holes in the practice round because of bad weather and Florida was familiar with the course, they would’ve definitely still won anyway the way they played.”

Rubinson said the team played well, but still needs to reach their potential to be the best in the nation.

“We did not play our best. If we play our best there’s not many, if any, teams that can keep up with us,” Rubinson said. “We didn’t know the course like (Florida and North Florida) did and that limited our peak ability.”

Montigel said Florida and Texas may bypass the team in the rankings, but he said he isn’t worried about computer rankings so early in the season.

The team will play next at the Prestige at Palm Desert in Palm Desert Calif. Nov. 5 and 6.

Rubinson said he expects the team to pick up their play in California.

“I expect at least one if not two wins in California coming up,” Rubinson said. “Look for a real good performance from all of us. I’m real confident about it.”

Jordan Blum
j.d.blum@student.tcu.edu