Head Coach Bill Allcorn liked what he saw from his golf team during rounds on Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately, the Southern Highlands Collegiate tournament didn’t start until Sunday.
The Frogs shot 894 as a team, 30 strokes over par, and finished the three-day tournament in Las Vegas 15th out of 15 teams.
Allcorn said the team struggled with nerves because the tee boxes were crowded with fans.
“For our squad, outside of Gustav, none of them have really played a big-time event like this one,” Allcorn said.
The field at Southern Highlands included eight ranked teams: No. 1 North Carolina, No. 2 Auburn, No. 4 Arizona State, No. 15 Oklahoma, No. 16 New Mexico, No. 17 Illinois, No. 21 Texas and No. 23 Florida. Oklahoma won the tournament shooting 856, eight strokes under par.
Even though they struggled to score, Allcorn said he knows the team got better because they went to Vegas this week.
“I think just our guys need to experience that more and more and more in order to feel comfortable and confident,” Allcorn said.
“Once you learn how to use pressure to your advantage, you’re beating everybody,” he said.
The Frogs started their final round on Tuesday playing the back nine. They shot 15 strokes over par on holes 10 and 11, before finishing up on the front nine.
Allcorn said their poor start was difficult to overcome.
“They’re not overly difficult holes,” he said. “You’ve got somewhat of a tight hole on 10…not really very tight on 11, but just a long hole. It’s hard to play catch up.”
Senior player Gustav Frimodt went into Tuesday tied for sixth place at three strokes under par. He slipped back to 18th place after the final round where he had his only double bogey of the tournament on 11.
“All the other rounds I’ve been coming off a good start,” Frimodt said. “It’s not a course you want to get behind on because it’s not a course where you could fire at pins. You can’t…be aggressive into greens. You have to play smart out there and make some longer putts because the greens are firm and it’s windy.”
The Frogs improved their distance control at Southern Highlands, but Allcorn said he wants his players to work on embracing the pressure before the Louisiana Classics Invitational in Lafayette, Louisiana on March 11-12.
“When you feel pressure, it’s an important moment for you,” he said. “It should allow you to perform better. So getting our guys to see that as a gift, and not something that we should worry about or feel anxiousness about…we’re really going to try to hammer that home.”
The team’s work ethic has impressed Allcorn this spring, but he said improvements won’t always produce results right away.
“You have to understand that it is a process,” he said. “We could roll down to Louisiana and five of our guys could all finish under par for the week. And we look back, man, we got so much better over this last two-month period. You just don’t really see it when you’re in it. But once you look back, you definitely see it.”
