The Bobcats had their best finish of the year as two golfers finished in the top ten.
When the Bobcats arrived in White Sulfer Springs, West Virginia, for the Greenbrier Invitational, they had little knowledge of the challenge awaiting them.
This was only the second year of the tournament and Ohio had never competed in the invitational or seen the course before in person.
The tournament was scheduled for two rounds on Monday and a third round on Tuesday. Rain and lightning, however, forced the final round to be cancelled.
After the first round, the Bobcats sat in fifth place with sophomore Ty Herriott only two strokes behind the individual leader. Herriott shot a 69, which marked the best round of his career. As a team, Ohio shot a 285 in the first round, which set its new lowest round of the year by 10 strokes.
“I think it was by far our best performance of the season,” coach Bob Cooley said. “Everybody contributed and everybody played pretty well on a course they hadn’t seen before.”
The Bobcats finished tied for fifth place out of the 13 teams competing in the event.
The sophomores led the way for Ohio as Herriott finished tied for sixth place and Peyton White tied for ninth place. Junior Michael Engelman finished tied for 32nd place while freshman Grant Engel and senior Thomas Leech finished tied for 41st out of 72 golfers.
The team gained momentum in their previous tournament, the Middleburg Bank intercollegiate, when they finished in the middle of a pack containing tougher competition that what it’s used to facing. It was also a tournament in which Ohio made its debut.
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“I thought it was pretty awesome to go out and shoot 285 first round on a PGA-Tour-level golf course and it was pretty incredible,” White said. “It’s nice to build up some momentum after we established it last tournament and to follow (the first round) up with a 290 which is still better than our previous best round of the year was pretty good and it showed that we were playing some really good golf.”
The Bobcats rode the momentum into this tournament and paired it with some motivated play from Herriott, who did not make the starting five in the previous tournament. It was the first tournament he missed so far this year.
“I was very happy to see (Herriott) play well and he got off to a good start, got some confidence and the more he played, the better he played,” Cooley said. “That’s what we’ve been waiting on out of him pretty much the whole year, so hopefully he’ll keep it going.”
Ohio has used several different lineups this year as they only travel five out of the 11 golfers on the roster.
“Missing a tournament is one of the worst feelings, but you can’t let it affect you too much,” Herriott said. “You have to make a decision. It’s either you keep being down on yourself or you work hard and keep your head up and I just said to myself ‘You know you’re good enough. You know you can do it, just go out there and prove it,’ so that’s what I did.”
@Matt_Fout
mf056713@ohio.edu
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