Men's golfers lower scores during second tournament

Men's golf took 13th during its second tournament of the season at the VCU Shootout earlier this week.

The VCU Shootout took place Monday and Tuesday at the Hermitage Country Club in Manakin-Sabot, Va. It was the closest tournament to Richmond the team has had, seniors Tim Courtney and Lawrence Lessing said. VCU has hosted the tournament in previous years but the Spiders had not entered as a team.

Fifteen teams competed, and Richmond tied with Southern Florida University for the 13th spot, finishing ahead of Old Dominion University.

The Spiders were tied for sixth place after Monday's first round, but finished the day in 13th place after a 10-over-par performance during the day's second round. The team shot 21-over-par during all three rounds of the tournament and did not fluctuate from its 13th position during the second day of the tournament.

"My overall feelings are pretty disappointed in our finish," head coach Adam Decker said.

Decker said he had expected the team to finish in the top half of this tournament, and Lessing and Courtney said last week that they had hoped to finish in the top three.

Sophomore Sam Beach led the team after the first two rounds of the tournament with scores of 69 and 74, respectively. He finished 32nd overall. Teammate Lawrence Lessing was closest behind him, with a score of 72.

"He's been a pretty consistent performer for us," Decker said.

Beach fell one spot on Tuesday and finished 3-over-par.

Sophomore Michael Shrader was three strokes behind Beach and moved up nine spots Tuesday, finishing tied for 44th. Shrader transferred to Richmond this year and walked onto the team earlier this month. This was his first tournament as a Spider.

The VCU Shootout was the second tournament the Spiders competed in this season. The first was the Rutherford Intercollegiate, where the team finished in last place. The players and coach were not happy with their performance and thought it should have been more competitive with more of the schools there, particularly rivals Penn State and VCU, Lessing and Courtney said.

VCU finished this week's tournament tied for second while Penn State placed ninth.

"We feel we have nowhere to go but up," Lessing said.

Since that tournament, the players had been focusing on chipping and putting in practices and added two lifting sessions each week, Lessing and Courtney said.

Richmond still had trouble with putts this week, which cost the team strokes, Decker said.

"One of the things that really hurt us was course management," he said

Each player's score was lower this week than it was in the Rutherford Tournament, and Decker said this was an improvement but still not enough for this tournament.

The team has two more tournaments for the fall season. The next one is the Liberty Invitational on Oct. 13 and 14 in Charlottesville, Va. The final fall-season tournament is the Georgetown Hoya Invitational, which will take place in Beallesville, Md. The next two courses are familiar to the Spiders and Decker said they expected to continue to lower their scores.

"My goal for the guys is to win one of these two," Decker said.

Contact staff writer Jesse Murray at jessica.murray@richmond.edu