Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Spartans snag lead; Maroon Tide lurks in first round of Group A golf tournament
Giles fires a 314 to take a nine-stroke edge into the final round.
The Roanoke Times
File 2008 Radford's Zeke Shaffer, shown here during a practice round last year, is tied with James River's Korey Watts heading into today.
MIDLOTHIAN -- It was a good day for Region C in the first round of the Group A golf tournament at Independence Golf Club on Monday.
Giles and Galax sit in first and second place, respectively, in the team standings heading into today's final round, and three individual golfers from Timesland are at the top of the leaderboard.
Zeke Shaffer (Radford) and Korey Watts (James River) each shot 1-over-par 73s and are tied for first place, while Scott Obenshain (Glenvar) shot a 74 to wind up in third.
These three managed to avoid the high rounds that many others carded, but what made the course so hard?
"Putting on the greens," Watts said. "If you have a 40-foot putt you can blow it by 30 feet pretty easily."
Obenshain had to agree.
"Stressful day," he said. "Couldn't get up and down really. ... Couldn't make a putt.
"If you get it on the green it's gonna stick, but when you're putting it's so fast."
Tanner Carbaugh (77), Trevor Myers (79), Caleb Tilley (79) and Michael Carbaugh (79) combined for a 314 to give Giles the early lead.
"They got off to a real rough start," Giles coach W.R. Johnston said. "But they held it together and brought it back. It's not as good as we can do, but under the circumstances, I was real proud of their efforts, hanging in there, pulling it together, bringing it in."
And Johnston thinks he knows what score it will take to stay on top.
"We've been real consistent all year shooting around 303, and so my hope is that, if we can come in with that ... that would be a good score for us," he said.
Matt Downey (79), Brock Cox (80), Kyle Schaeffer (81) and John Bryant (83) combined for 323 for Galax.
Shaffer has his own prediction as to what he thinks he'll have to shoot to remain in the top spot after today's round.
"Probably shoot about 2-under tomorrow," Shaffer said. "Because it'll probably be a little nicer."
Judging by the amount of high scores from the field, a lot of people are probably hoping for better weather.
