“Our guys were in a pretty good frame of mind,” Knowles Family Director of Men’s Golf Conrad Ray said. “We had a good warmup. We had a slow front nine though. There were a couple severe hole locations that we didn’t do well with. Got off to a little bit of a slow start. A few of the guys had one or two swings that they’d like back and got them in trouble to make a double. All in all a better day, but we still haven’t played our best round yet.”
When Stanford’s round ended, the Cardinal sat in a tie for 25th, but similarly to most afternoons, the winds picked up and the greens dried out causing higher scores in the afternoon. The field is very bunched, as just eight strokes separate sixth place (+20) from 19th place (+28).
The Cardinal was led by Michael Thorbjornsen, Karl Vilips and Barclay Brown on Saturday, who all shot identical 2-over 72s. All five Cardinal golfers were even-par or better on their back nine Saturday, as Brown led the way coming in at 1-under. After just seven birdies on Friday, Stanford increased that total to 15 on Saturday and shaved a total of five strokes off its score in the process.
“I feel like our guys haven’t played their best yet,” Ray said. “We have one step at a time and it would be great to sneak into that Top 15 and see what happens tomorrow. I’m going to watch the scores and evaluate everything. We don’t need to be heroic, but you have to play good golf. You can’t hurt yourself with big numbers.”
Stanford, at a tie for 14th and the No. 13 seed, will tee off beginning at 8 a.m. on Sunday off the first tee with No. 12 Texas Tech and No. 14 Oregon. The field will be cut in half to 15 teams following Sunday’s round and those 15 will play for the eight match-play spots during Monday’s final round of stroke play.
NCAA Championships (Grayhawk Golf Club, par 70)
| Name | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
T22. Stanford
|
295 (+15)
|
290 (+10)
|
— |
—
|
585 (+25)
|
| T18. Michael Thorbjornsen | 71 (+1) | 72 (+2) | — | — | 143 (+3) |
| T32. Karl Vilips | 73… |
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