Michigan
Erin Hills Collegiate
Michigan Finishes Eighth at Erin Hills Intercollegiate
10/8/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Site: Hartford, Wis.
Course: Erin Hills Golf Course (par 72, 7,236 yards)
Tournament: Erin Hills Intercollegiate
U-M Team Standing: 8th Place of 14 Teams (290-305-298/893)
Top U-M Individual: Chris O'Neill, tie-13th (71-76-70/217, +1)
Next U-M Event: Mon-Tue., Oct. 14-15 -- at AutoTrader.com Collegiate Classic (Duluth, Ga.)
HARTFORD, Wis. -- Sophomore Chris O'Neill (Glen Allen, Va./Deep Run HS) fired a one-over 217 (71-76-70) to lead the University of Michigan men's golf team to eighth at Marquette's Erin Hills Intercollegiate, which concluded today (Tuesday, Oct. 8) at the Erin Hills Golf Course. U-M shot rounds of 290, 305 and 298 for an 893, which bested a pair of Big Ten schools in Wisconsin and Michigan State.
U-M opened the three-day event Sunday (Oct. 6), posting its best team total of the tournament (290) -- paced by O'Neill's first of two sub-par rounds at one-under 71. Meanwhile, freshman Bryce Evon (Windsor, Ontario, Canada/Vincent Massey Secondary School) tied a career best with an even-par 72.
After sitting tied for sixth after the first day, blustery conditions saw scores elevate across the leaderboard on Monday (Oct. 7) as the Wolverines dropped into a tie for eighth after a 305 second-round total -- highlighted by sophomore Brett McIntosh's (London, Ontario, Canada/Saunders Secondary School) two-over 74.
With calmer and sunny conditions in today's final round, O'Neill got back on pace, firing his tournament-best, two-under 70, while McIntosh and Evon had rounds of 75.
Behind nine birdies, O'Neill led U-M for the third straight event, tying for 13th, while McIntosh followed his classmate for the third consecutive event, tying for 33rd at 223 (74-74-75). The lefty notched three of his five birdies in the middle round.
In his second career start, freshman Reed Hrynewich (Muskegon, Mich./Mona Shores HS) tied for 45th, setting a career-best 54-hole event total at 227 (73-76-78). Rounding out the Wolverines scoring was Evon tying for 55th at 230 (72-83-75) and junior Noori Hyun (Seoul, Korea/Centreville HS [Va.]) tying for 58th at 231 (74-79-78).
The Wolverines will waste little time getting back to competition as they will head to Duluth, Ga., Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 14-15) for Georgia State's AutoTrader.com Collegiate Classic. With U-M on fall break, the entire U-M roster will play in the two-day, 54-hole event held at the Berkeley Hill Country Club.
Final Team Standings
1. Stanford 280-285-286 = 851
2. UCLA 286-294-279 = 859
3. SMU 286-290-287 = 863
Oklahoma 290-291-282 = 863
5. Northwestern 289-292-285 = 866
6. St. John's 292-290-286 = 868
7. Oregon State 289-295-294 = 878
8. MICHIGAN 290-305-298 = 893
9. Marquette 290-305-299 = 894
10. Wisconsin 295-306-297 = 898
11. Michigan State 300-306-300 = 906
12. Wisconsin-Green Bay 295-310-317 = 922
13. Northern Illinois 314-308-305 = 927
DePaul 307-309-311 = 927
Top Individuals
1. Patrick Rodgers, Stanford 68-72-69 = 209 (-7)
2. Ryan McCormick, St. John's 71-71-70 = 212
3. Lorens Chan, UCLA 71-74-68 = 213
Bryson Dechambeau, SMU 69-71-73 = 213
Harry Higgs, SMU 68-74-71 = 213
6. David Boote, Stanford 71-72-71 = 214
Jonathan Garrick, UCLA 75-74-65 = 214
Michael Gellerman, Oklahoma 72-72-70 = 214
Cameron Wilson, Stanford 69-72-73 = 214
10. Jim Liu, Stanford 72-69-74 = 215
Jack Perry, Northwestern 76-69-70 = 215
Michigan Individuals
T13. Chris O'Neill 71-76-70 = 217 (+1) T33. Brett McIntosh 74-74-75 = 223 T45. Reed Hrynewich 73-76-78 = 227 T55. Bryce Evon 72-83-75 = 230 T58. Noori Hyun 74-79-78 = 231
NOTES
• Chris O'Neill has led U-M in all three events during the fall season.
• Chris O'Neill and Brett McIntosh have finished 1-2 for the Wolverines in every event this season.
• With two sub-par rounds, Chris O'Neill has fired seven of his nine total rounds under par and has only one round over par this season. He leads U-M with a 70.11 per-round average.
• Reed Hrynewich set new career best for a single round (73, first) and 54-hole tournament (227), which was 11 shots better than his opening event.
• Both O'Neill and Hrynewich posted eagles in round one on the par-5, 586-yard 14th hole.
• Bryce Evon tied his career best for a single round with an even-par 72 in the first round.
• Evon and Hrynewich had seven birdies apiece over the three-day event.
QUOTES
Michigan Head Coach Chris Whitten
On the Erin Hills Intercollegiate ... "The golf course felt like it changed every day and we, obviously, did not adapt on the second day. The wind was up, and the thing that makes the course difficult is your poor shots are really penalized a lot. We hit enough good shots, but I think we need to learn how to handle the situations when we get offline. We need to recover better. Chris (O'Neill) paced us with a nice final round. We need to give him some more support. I thought it was pretty scoreable today. We just did not take advantage of it like we needed to."
On the continued strong play of Chris O'Neill ... "He is really keeping it basic. I would not say his ball-striking has been great; he is just limiting his misses. Then he scores really well around the green. Out of the three tournaments we have played so far, he would probably say this event was the roughest for him, but he still managed to shoot some really good rounds, which is a good sign."
On having Reed Hrynewich in the lineup and the play of Bryce Evon ... "Reed is still working on some things. He is playing with his game during his transition right now. I am proud of the way he is fighting through and really giving us his best effort. Bryce was really a victim of a couple bad lies and some super penalizing shots (during the second round). He played better than what his second-round score showed. Today he played better and probably did not finish it off the way he wanted, but he is going to be a good consistent player down the road."
On preparing for the next event during fall break ... "We have to regroup a little bit. The biggest change going south will be figuring out the greens. We are to play on a different type of green than we have before. That's really going to be our focus."
Players Mentioned
