CARLSBAD, Calif. — Texas A&M golfer Daniel Rodrigues was a highlight during Saturday’s second round as he shot a 1-under 71 to propel himself into a tie for 15th at the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship.
The senior in his last tournament for A&M moved up 26 spots at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa North Course. Rodrigues sits at 1-over 145 for the tournament.
Stanford’s Karl Vilips leads the field at 7-under 137.
“[Daniel] is such a fighter,” A&M head coach Brian Kortan said. “What he does so well is he doesn’t care what it looks like – he’ll find a way to shoot the best score he can every day. That’s what he did today. The golf course wasn’t giving up good scores and his afternoon round of 1-under par was definitely one of the best round out there.”
As a team though, the 21st-ranked Aggies fell seven spots after shooting a 19-over 307 and currently sit in a tie for 22nd with New Mexico and SMU. Through two rounds, A&M is at 29-over 605 and is seven strokes behind the cutoff for the top 15.
People are also reading…
Stanford’s 22-over 598 has them currently in the last spot.
The top 15 teams play Monday’s final round of stroke play before the top eight move on to the match play bracket.
Sunday’s third round starts at 2:55 p.m. from the first hole with A&M paired up with New Mexico and SMU.
“It was right there for us today finishing up the round,” Kortan said. “We didn’t start the best. The wind was blowing a little bit when we started and we didn’t handle it really well. But we steadied the ship and played the hard holes really well the second half of the round. We put ourselves in position to be in the top 15 going into tomorrow with the chance to concentrate on the next thing [which is getting in the top 8 for match play]. But we just finished poorly and you can’t do that at [the] national championship. You have to play 18 holes. We didn’t finish the round off well and now we’re behind the 8-ball a little bit. We’re going to have to play some really good golf tomorrow and hopefully get into that top 15 and then fight our tail of to get into the eight.”