Baird and Moore top scorers for the Buffs
The CU men’s golf team and first-year head coach Roy Edwards finished in 11th place at this year’s Big 12 Conference Championships in Hutchinson, Kansas.
The team finished with a three-day total of 922, more than 50 strokes behind the eventual champion Oklahoma State Cowboys who tallied a score of 866. Texas A&M finished in second place, six strokes behind the Cowboys.
The Buffs entered Tuesday’s round with a chance to finish as high as fifth or sixth but were unable to break out on a day where the winds gusted up to 25 mph.
“It was a very difficult tournament for us overall, that’s about all I can say to sum it up,” Edwards said. “It was unfortunate we couldn’t play better, but it was a great experience for us.”
In a tournament where CU found everything hard to come by, the 11th place finish was no different. If not for an eagle on the 512-yard, par-5 7th hole by junior Michael Baird, the Buffs would have finished in last place for the first time since 1949.
Baird had the best tournament of any Buff individual with a 10-over score of 220. The score was good enough to earn Baird an eighth place finish and a spot on the Big 12 All-Tournament Team. The junior is just the sixth Buff to ever earn the honor.
CU’s next best finisher was senior Blake Moore. Moore tied for 40th with a 22-over total of 232. Coming in third for the Buffs was junior Patrick Grady, who finished 48th with a three-day total of 236.
The Prairie Dunes proved difficult for everyone at the Championships, not just CU’s golfers. The course yielded only six sub-par rounds the entire tournament and the average for the 180 rounds recorded was 76.43 strokes per round, an average of more than six-over par for each round played.
The Buffs are off for two weeks until they resume play in the Perry Maxwell Intercollegiate in Ardmore, Okla. The Buffs will know before that tournament whether or not they have been selected to play in the regionals of the NCAA Championships.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Stirling Wade at stirling.wade@thecampuspress.com
