OOLTEWAH, Tenn. — Washington senior Darren Wallace shot a 2-under-par 70 on Wednesday to lead the Husky golf team, which combined to shoot an even-par 288 in the second round of the NCAA Championships at The Honors Course.
The fourth-seeded Huskies left the course with many teams yet to complete their rounds and ultimately ended up tied for seventh with Clemson at 1-over-par overall. Play was suspended at 8:45 p.m. with several teams on the course and will resume at 7:00 a.m. (4 PDT) today.
“I thought we played pretty well,” said coach Matt Thurmond, whose team moved up from ninth after round one. “We’re still throwing away a few shots here and there, but this is a tough golf course and it’ll make you do that.”
Florida State, the tournament’s 11th seed, shot a 9-under 279 on the day and is five strokes ahead of No. 3-seeded Oklahoma State. Georgia Tech is third at 4-under and Augusta State is the only other squad in the red at 1-under. Florida and San Diego are each even for the tourney and tied for fifth.
Wallace, who struggled for much of the season, went without a birdie for the first 20 holes of the competition before breaking out with one on No. 12. He didn’t wait long for his next birdie, converting a long putt on No. 13 to give him two in a row. Ultimately he had five on the day and is 1-over for the tournament and tied for 43rd.
“I felt a little more comfortable,” said Wallace about the importance of hitting the first birdie. “It wasn’t like I was forcing it to go in anymore. I was essentially begging for putts to drop early but that didn’t really help so (the first birdie) really got me going.”
Freshman Chris Williams has the best score of all Huskies and is 1-under for the tournament and tied for 21st. He came out of the gate blazing with three-consecutive birdies on No. 11 through No. 13. He bogeyed 16, but answered that with a birdie on No. 17.
The front nine proved to be much tougher for the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year as he had three bogeys and just one birdie to ultimately end his round with a 1-under 71.
Richard Lee entered the round as the Dawgs top golfer at 2-under, but a 5-over 77 put a damper on his efforts for a second-consecutive individual win. He is tied for 68th.
Fellow senior and 2010 Ben Hogan Award winner Nick Taylor shot his second-consecutive round of 1-over. He is 55th at 2-over.
Freshman Charlie Hughes shot his second-consecutive 2-over 74 and is tied for 84th.
San Diego’s Alex Ching tied the competitive course record on Wednesday with a 6-under par 66 and leads first round co-leader Henrik Norlander (Augusta State) and Peter Uihlein (Oklahoma State) by two shots as the duo is at 7-under par 137. Illinois’ Scott Langley is also at 7-under but has one more hole to play tomorrow.
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