The Sam Houston State women’s golf team finished 12th at the Arkansas Razorback Invitational on Monday and Tuesday in Rogers, Ark.This was the second tournament of the 2002 – 2003 season for the Bearkat women who’s score totaled 360-342-3341036.Craig Rex, SHSU head golf coach, said it was a little disappointing not to finish between 5th and 10th out of the field of 14. “We really shot ourselves in the foot pretty much the first three or four holes of the tournament,” said Rex. “The very first morning, as a team, we went 20 or 25 over and we had a couple of girls struggling early on.”SHSU began the tournament on a shot-gun start, which means Arkansas started on holes one, two, three, four and five, while the Bearkats started on holes 12, 13, 14 and 15, he said.”Throughout the whole tournament holes number 13 and 14 played about four over for the entire field, on average,” said Rex. “On the first two or three holes, we had an eight on a par four, an eight on a par five, a 10 on a par five and a 13 on a par five, so we really got off to a shaky start which obviously does not help our confidence.” The Bearkats shot a 334 in the last round, which could have finished the team in 8th or 9th place if the team had shot that for three rounds; which is what the team was looking at, he said.”It is really disappointing to come out really excited to play and then, all of a sudden, a lot of bad things start happening,” Rex said. Sophomore Raman Saran finished 32nd individually with a 54-hole total of 87-84-79250. Leah Hart of Augusta State, was the individual medallist winner with a score of 74-73-79- – 226. The two factors that played the most were a very deep rough about four or five inches that kept the players from progressing the ball, he said.The University of Arkansas won the tournament with a team total of 310-313-314937. Oral Roberts followed Arkansas in 2nd place with a team total of 946 and Augusta State came in 3rd with 962. Conference Foe Lamar finished, 8th with a 984.”Experience is the key in golf, especially if you play a lot of the same tournaments. By the time you are a junior, you have played that same course two or three times and you start to learn where not to hit, and also as you get older, you learn to prepare a little better before the tournament,” Rex said.SHSU individual scores were freshman Brittany Spieth, 52nd place with a total of 91-85-82258; junior Kayla Duhr, 59th with 88-88-86262; sophomore Emily Ogilvy, 65th with 98-85-87270; and junior Leigh Reynolds, 67th with 94-93-87274. “In the fast greens, for example, Brittany Spieth had a pretty good round going in the second round of the tournament and then ended up four putting a hole,” said Rex. “She just kept flipping it out probably about six or seven feet, but it was so fast when you flipped it out, it would still roll about six or seven feet from the hole.”The Bearkat women will be in the Lamar University Cardinal Classic at the Beaumont Country Club in Beaumont, Texas, on Oct. 21 and 22. “We have two more tournaments in the fall and the next one is at Lamar, which we are going to take a little different crew there to get them some experience,” Rex said. “We will be hosting a tournament in November at Waterwood and obviously, the goal there is to finish in the top five.”
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