Montana sitting 10th after 36 holes at St. George
3/18/2013 12:00:00 AM | Golf
March 18, 2013
The Montana golf team shot rounds of 322 and 309 Monday on the opening day of the BYU at Entrada Classic at Snow Canyon Country Club in St. George, Utah. The Grizzlies were 12th after the opening round, then were 13 shots better in the afternoon to move up to 10th.
Sophomore Tara Green (77-76--153) is nine over through 36 holes and tied for 16th. Senior Olivia Weber (77-77--154) is 10 over and tied for 23rd.
Freshman Phoebe Tan (82-75--157), freshman Hayley Bingham (86-81--167) and junior Lindsay Reeve (89-81--170) all struggled in the early round, but they collectively played the second round in 20 fewer shots.
"This is one of those courses that will challenge you in all aspects of your game," UM coach Emily Milberger said. "We started on a challenging part of the course and did a good job of staying focused, but we lost some of that when we reached some of the easier holes.
"We were more engaged and maintained our focus through the afternoon round and were able to take advantage of the simpler holes, and our scores reflected that."
Green was tremendous through the early parts of both of her rounds and was only some late misplayed holes in both rounds from being among the leaders.
Starting on hole 11 Monday morning, Green shot 12 straight pars before falling into a bogey-bogey-bogey-double bogey trap. In the afternoon round she was one over through her first 15 holes before going triple bogey on the par-3 eighth.
Green was nine over for the day. She gave five of those shots away at No. 8 alone.
Weber had three birdies, 23 pars, seven bogeys and three double bogeys on the day.
Reeve had the day's biggest improvement, going from an 89 to an 81. After an opening round with just four pars and no birdies, she had nine pars and one birdie in the afternoon.
Tan, who had three birdies in the afternoon after going without in the morning round, improved by seven strokes, from 82 to 75, and Bingham carded an 81 in the afternoon after a morning 86.
"Playing 36 holes can be a grind if you have too many emotional swings, which we did this morning," Milberger said. "I'm proud of how the ladies responded in the afternoon. We used our energy much more efficiently."
Wisconsin (296-293), which has the top two individuals in Kimberly Dinh (72-70--142) and Kris Yoo (71-72--143), holds the team lead by 11 strokes over Minnesota (304-296). Host BYU (292-315) held the opening-round lead after a 292, but the Cougars played the afternoon round in 315.
