Red Raider golfers move up at NCAA tournament
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Baard Skogen shot even-par 70 and Ludvig Aberg and Sandy Scott each signed for 1-over 71 Saturday, helping Texas Tech gain ground during Saturday's second of the NCAA men's golf championship tournament.
The Red Raiders, playing in the morning wave at Grayhawk Golf Club, shot 7-over 287 as a team, 10 strokes better than Friday, and then watched other teams come back to them.
Tech's other counting score came from Calum Scott, who shot 75. The Red Raiders' non-counting score was a 79 from Carl Didrik Meen Fosaas.
Aberg, who last week won the Ben Hogan Award as the nation's top college men's golfer, birdied the par-3 16th to get to 1-over. Skogen and Calum Scott both finished with bogeys on the par-4 18th.
Tech is tied for 12th place going into the third round. When 54 holes are completed Sunday, the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on those teams make the cut for the fourth round of stroke play on Monday.
The 72-hole scores will determine the individual NCAA champion and advance the top eight teams into the match-play bracket that will start with four quarterfinals.
"It was tough out there again, but our guys grinded," Tech coach Greg Sands said. "I liked their fight. Our mission has been pretty clear. We just have to keep playing. We haven’t been too sharp yet but we’ll look to put one together tomorrow."
The temperature in Scottsdale reached 102 degrees during Friday's round and 99 during Saturday's. The course didn't give the golfers many breaks either. On Saturday, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State became the only two teams to post a team score below par during he first two rounds.
The Sooners have the lead at 2-over after shooting 5-under on Saturday. Their nearest pursuers are Vanderbilt at 4-over, Oklahoma State at 6-over and North Carolina at 9-over. Oklahoma State was 3-under for the day.
Last year's champion Pepperdine is 16-over, Arkansas 20-over and Auburn 21-over.
Vanderbilt's Cole Sherwood (70-67) leads the medalist race at 3-under, one shot better than Oklahoma State's Aman Gupta (73-65) and Vanderbilt's Gordon Sargent (70-68).
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: College golf: Red Raider golfers move up at NCAA tournament