As Day One of the NCAA championship golf tournament stretched to the brink of darkness in Fayetteville, Ark., Georgia ended the long day in 9th place, 10 strokes in arrears of the top-seeded leader, Oklahoma State.
Led by SEC freshman of the year Trent Phillips – who shot a 1-over 73 – Georgia stood at a combined 12 over par Friday. The team score is the total of the four lowest scores from each five-player team.
Georgia Tech, ranked fourth in the nation entering the event, was tied for 17th at 19 over. The low Yellow Jacket was Tyler Strafaci, with a 3-over 75. Tech’s No. 1 and 2 players – Luke Schniederjans (79) and Andy Ogletree (77) opened slowly in the stroke play portion of the competition.
Georgia Southern was one stroke behind Tech.
Cal senior Collin Morikawa, the Pac-12 player of the year and the No. 3-ranked amateur in the world, was atop the individual leaderboard, shooting a 5-under 67.
It was the first of four days of combined stroke play among the 30 teams playing at the Blessings Golf Club – the top 15 teams advance to the final day of stroke play on Monday. From there, the top eight teams advance to two days of match play to determine the national champion. The top nine players not on an advancing team also move on to play for the individual title.
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