By Angela Sumner
Staff Writer
After a sixth place finish at The Prestige last year, a tournament hosted by Stanford University, the No. 22 ranked Pepperdine men’s golf team came out this year expecting a better turn out.
And that’s just what they got this past weekend, finishing third out of 18 in a very competitive field.
Pepperdine posted a final round score of 873, finishing twenty shots behind first-place Texas Christian University who ended up at 853. The University of California at Irvine took third with a 868 and UCLA was fourth with a score of 877.
Individually, the Waves had two top-twenty finishes in a field of about ninety other players. Shining a positive outlook on the future of the team, freshman Chris Elliott led the Waves with a two-under score of 214. He finished in a three-way tie for sixth place with rounds of 77, 68, 69.
He credited his strong showing with keeping his nerves and keeping his concentration on every swing he took.
“I stayed patient and I didn’t get ahead of myself. It helped me focus on one shot at a time,” Elliot said.
The Waves began the tournament 11 shots over par in the first round. This score left them in 11th place just one day into the competition.
“I was struggling at first, the greens were tough, but I feel good about the come back,” Elliot said.
Sophomore Michael Putnam was second on the team posting a two over 218, landing him in a three-way tie for 15th place with rounds of 73,75,70.
“I played really well,” Putnam said. “I had some bad stretches, but I was pretty happy with my finish.”
Despite a slow start, Pepperdine answered with a strong comeback during the last two days of the tournament. The team finished two under par both days, helping themselves increase in the standings from 11th place to third.
Putnam said this weekend’s course, the La Quinta Golf Course, was a challenge to all of the players on the team.
“The course was short, and very difficult. The greens were hard as rocks, which made chipping and putting complicated,” Putnam said. But luckily, Mother Nature was on their side.
“The weather was absolutely perfect, 85 degrees,” Putnam said. “Not a breath of wind.”
Top finishers in the tournament were Chris Marshall from the University of Kansas carding a -9 (207) for first place, and Adam Rubinson from TCU with a -8 (208).
Pepperdine travels to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, this weekend to compete at the 16-team Hooters Match Play Championships at the Barefoot Resort.
They said they are going into this next tournament confident and ready to play well.
November 07, 2002