It wasn’t the start East Tennessee State was hoping for at the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship, not by any stretch of the imagination.The Bucs struggled from the beginning Friday and shot a 20-over-par 300 that left them so far back they will be fighting an uphill battle over the next two days just to make the 54-hole cut at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.ETSU enters Saturday’s second round tied with North Carolina State for 28th place in a 30-team field. The top 15 teams after 54 holes advance to Monday’s final stroke-play round. The top eight teams then move on to match play to determine the national champion.Texas Tech held the team lead at 4 under par, Sam Houston State was second at 2 under and Pepperdine sat third at 1 under. They were the only teams to break par on the 7,289-yard, par-70 course.How tough was the Bucs’ start? By the time they made their first birdie, eight holes into the round, they had carded 11 bogeys and a double bogey.Archie Davies, the Southern Conference champion who broke the course record with a 63 in the regionals, shot an 80 that included a quadruple bogey and a double and yielded no birdies.Trevor Hulbert and Jack Rhea shot 74s to lead the team and both had to rally for those scores. The Bucs began on the back nine and Hulbert made the turn at 3 over before a quadruple-bogey 8 on the par-4 first hole. He managed to play the rest of the front nine in 3 under to keep it respectable. Rhea carded three birdies on his last nine holes.Shiso Go, who won the individual title at the regionals, shot 77.Only redshirt freshman Remi Chartier, the Bucs’ No. 5 man, escaped the big numbers. He was the only ETSU player not to have a double bogey or worse and came home with a 75 that included six bogeys and a birdie.Purdue’s Cole Bradley shot a 4-under 66 to grab a one-shot lead in the individual race.Clemson senior Will Nottingham, a Kingsport native, shot 76. His score didn’t count toward the Tigers’ team total.
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