Golf surprises pack with third-place finish

By Yan Digilov     11/6/08 6:00pm

This week in California, the Pacific Invitational turned out to be the tournament the golf team was waiting for. The Owls' fall season has been markedly weak despite high hopes after a productive summer and a promising transfer arrived on campus. But on Friday before the team left for California, head coach Drew Scott said he was only waiting for a spark to ignite their fire. "We need to have a good week," he said. "We need to have one good tournament that sparks us. We are on the cusp of breaking through."

Led by junior Michael Buttacavoli's second place finish out of a field of 60, the Owls captured third place in the three-day tournament held in Stockton, Calif. from Nov. 3-5. With a combined score of seven over par, they were beat only by University of California-Davis, which shot four over par, and Kansas State University, which finished one over. UC Davis is ranked 15th in the nation and KSU is ranked 49th.

Though the finish was a strong way to cap off the fall season, it showed only a glimpse of the Owls' abilities. The squad led the 12-team tournament coming into the last day, but a pair of individually weak performances contributed to a score of nine over par in the last round, tied for the worst finish of the day, and the drop to third place.

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Buttacavoli shot two over par in the final round, his worst numbers of the event. Sophomore Michael Whitehead shot his worst score two days in a row with a five over par on Tuesday and Wednesday. Senior Kyle Kelley, however, turned things around in the final two days, posting a 73 and a 72, after struggling in the first round with a 75.

The anchor for consistency turned out to be junior Christopher Brown. He shot one over par, 72, in the first and third rounds, and a 71 in the second.

"We always thought that this lineup was going to be pretty good," Brown said. "We knew what we could do, but we just hadn't had the opportunity to put it together."

Before this week's tournament, no Rice team of five had been able to finish better than the middle of the pack in the fall season, with their highest finish 8th of 16 at the Kansas Invitational on Sept. 15-16.

Though they look physically similar to last year's last place finishers in the Conference-USA tournament, the 2008-'09 squad has been showing strong signs of improvement throughout the fall, proving that last year's shortcomings are no longer on their minds.

The first step in that process came over the summer, as the team worked to stay in shape and came away with some victories to show for it. Brown topped a field of 60 in the Sonterra Collegiate Open in San Antonio on Aug.7. The following week, Kelley finished second in the College Players Tour National Championship at Texas Star Golf Course in Euless. Brown finished the same tournament in third.

Newcomer Ben Thorseth also showed signs of promise, winning an event in August put on by the American Junior golf association. The freshman finished second in the high school 5A state tournament representing Strake Jesuit in the spring.

Eight of the 10 men on the roster have qualified to play on the five-man roster in a tournament this fall, including freshman Erik Mayer, who played in the Kansas invitational, and Thorseth, who qualified for the Prestige at PGA West tournament on Oct. 13-14.

However, sophomore transfer Robert Burrow has made biggest mark of any of the newcomers after transferring to Rice from Division III Rhodes College at the end of last spring. Though he has taken time to adjust to the stiffer competition in Division I, Burrow has proven himself to be a reliable member of the team's top five rotation that will usually travel together in the spring tournaments.

Those top five qualified for the Pacific Invitational this week, and the results speak for themselves. The squad is made up of Kelley, Brown, Buttacavoli, Burrow and Whitehead.

"They are playing as well as they have played all semester," Scott said. "I have learned that some guys are gamers and play better at tournaments, and some of them don't. In golf you don't have any substitutions. You take your starting five and you are stuck with them for two or three days."

Scott intended for the fall season to give many of the young players the necessary experience to prepare for the regular season. He has scheduled a difficult series of tournaments in the winter and spring months in hopes of gaining an at large bid for postseason competition.

"You almost have to have that if you want to get into regionals," he said. "The automatic way to get in is if you win conference, but I don't want to throw all my eggs in one basket and just prepare for one tournament. I would much rather have a great body of work and when we come to conference, we know we are going to regionals."

It is not going to be easy for the Rice squad that has not seen much success in recent years. Their main battle will be against inconsistency, the mark of an inexperienced team. However, Scott hopes that the players, one year older, have learned what it takes to compete week after week.

"We are going to hit the ground running and try to get some wins in the spring," he said. "We are going to be ready to come into the Conference- USA championship. There should be no excuses at that point, [and we should know] who is going to be our starting five.

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