Tech men's golf finishes 5th after leading early

The Texas Tech men's golf team finished fifth in the Hawaii-Hilo Intercollegiate tournament at Waikoloa Village Golf Club last week.

Coach Greg Sands said he believes this disappointing finish will provide motivation for his team.

"We started really well, we were tied for first," Sands said. "We ended up dropping to fifth. The guys seem pretty motivated to not let that happen again. It was fifth out of eighteen, so we can't act like it was a bad performance. The guys are just so hungry to win tournaments that they were pretty disappointed that they didn't get the job done."

Junior golfer Garrett Merrell turned in one of his top outings of the year by finishing in the Top 10. He shot the tournament's third lowest round total Thursday with a six-under 64.

"Off the top of my head, I guess that's his best performance," Sands said. "We really are working on just doing well as a team, and he is obviously a team player. He has had three straight Top 10 (finishes), and I think he is playing real consistent and has got a lot of confidence right now. It's hard to judge from field to field which is the better performance, he is just playing really good right now."

The team ended day one of the tournament in a tie for first place with Arizona State but saw that lead disappear over the next two days. Sands said he believes some of his golfers tried too hard to win the tournament.

"I think for the most part, more than anything, we just probably tried a little bit too hard," he said. "Mentally I think they tried to win the golf tournament on the second and third day instead of just going out and playing. Sometimes in golf you can get ahead of yourself, not stay in the present, so to speak, and focus on each shot - they were thinking too far ahead."

Sands said he thought his team was well prepared, but they were just unable to finish.

"Sometimes you just don't do as well as you hoped," he said. "Like I said, we played well at first, we just didn't finish it. Most of those guys are from last year. Most of the guys have played on Bermuda greens, and it was windy one day. Obviously we were prepared for that, being (from) Lubbock."

Sands said he believes his team needs to hold on to a lead when it can get one, but he believes that will come with maturity.

"Basically I just - we are trying look at it like 'hey we are going to get the job done, but we are learning lots of different things from our experience' and in the long run we think it's going to make us better," he said. " Each one of the guys has something I think they can take from that and get better. Ultimately, we just don't want to be satisfied with being in the lead and not holding on to it."

Along with Merrell leading the team with a 7-under 203, Chris Ward shot a 4-under 206 to tie for 13th place in his first event as a Red Raider. Will Griffin and Santiago Rivas both carded a 2-over 212 while freshman Sergio Franky finished with an 8-over 218.

No. 10 Stanford won the event while No. 8 USC and Arizona State finished tied for second place.