WAIKOLOA, Hawaii – Against the steepest of competition, the Chico State men’s golf team is hanging in there. The Wildcats finished Wednesday’s first round of the 22nd annual Amer Ari, featuring the second toughest Division I field in the nation this spring, alone in 13th place at 1-over par. Kyle Souza carded a 3-under par 69 to finish the day in a tie for 15th, and Eric Frazzetta (-2) is tied for 26th in the 116-player field.
The Wildcats, ranked No. 9 in the nation among Division II teams, lead six Division I programs and the only other Division II program in the 20-team field, Hawaii-Hilo (+6), with two rounds left to play.
Texas, the top-ranked Division I team in the land, leads the tournament at 18-under par, five strokes clear of No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 Washington. No. 12 USC finished the day 12-under, followed by No. 11 Georgia Tech (-10), No. 8 Stanford (-6), No. 2 Oregon (-4), No. 14 Oklahoma State (-3), Texas Tech (-3), the University of San Francisco (-3), Arizona State (-2) and Japan’s Osaka Gakuin Univesity (even).
TCU, Colorado, and Oregon State are two strokes behind Chico State at +3, Hawaii and San Jose State are +5, Hawaii-Hilo is six over, and UC Davis is 11-over.
Souza, the defending NCAA Division II National Champion, was sizzling at 3-under par through 12 holes (after teeing off on four) and coming off back-to-back birdies when he stumbled to a rare double-bogey on the 16th. The senior Palmer Cup hopeful recovered with birdies on the par-5 18th and 2nd, however, and finished the round three strokes behind tournament leaders Patrick Grimes (Stanford), Cheng-Tsung Pan (Washington), and Pontus Widegren (UCLA).
Frazzetta, a returning Division II All-American, recorded four par-4 birdies on the way to his round of 70 that left him four strokes off the lead.
The Wildcats were as far back as 16th at one point late in Wednesday’s action, but Matt Williams’ birdie-birdie finish helped propel them upwards. Williams finished the day 2-over. Bobby Bucey was 4-over. And Kevin Rei was 5-over.
The Wildcats, winners of three of their four tournaments in the fall, are certainly not going to make it four of five on the season. However, continued solid play over the next two rounds would net a solid finish nonetheless.
The Wildcats tee off at 9:30 a.m., PST, Thursday and wrap up the tournament with another 9:30 shotgun start Friday. Live scoring is available at www.golfstat.com.
ROUND 1 TEAM RESULTS
ROUND 1 INDIVIDUAL RESULTS
