After the first two rounds of its young season were completed Monday, the Marquette men’s golf team was in 13th place out of 14 teams at the Kansas Invitational.
In the first day of tournament action since last season, coach Tim Grogan said the team picked a bad time to have four of its five players hit the ball poorly. Grogan was happy with junior Kelly Kretz’s rounds but felt the team as a whole needed to perform better.
“Each guy needs to take care of their business,” Grogan said. “Today they let their rounds get away from them and that’s what the results show.”
Kretz was the top scorer for Marquette at the par-72 Alvamar Golf Course. Kretz was 8-over-par for the two rounds, 73 and 79, respectively, which put him in a tie for 30th place overall.
“My first round wasn’t very good but I was only a few swings away from having a decent score,” Kretz said. “The 73 on the second round was a pretty good score today, but I felt like I left some shots out there.”
Senior Mike McDonald put up the team’s second best score at 13-over-par, but Grogan said redshirt junior Ben Sieg could have had the team’s best score if not for some problems keeping the ball in play.
“Ben Sieg played pretty good golf in the first round but he lost two balls on two different holes due to many leaves and things off of the fairway,” Grogan said. “One of the holes was a par-5 and he took a triple bogey. The other was a par-4 and he took a triple there too.
“He was putting good swings on the ball and looked like he was capable of scoring par. That’s just how it is.”
Grogan had a very simple solution for Sieg to improve his scores in future rounds.
“If you hit the ball down the center of the fairway then you won’t lose it,” he said.
Sieg had what could be considered the shot of the day given the team’s poor scores with a chip-in eagle in the second round on the par-5 11th.
“I played the hole very badly the first time,” Sieg said. “The second time I had a very good drive and then my approach shot went just over the flag and a little bit long off the green. The chip was about 15 yards off the green. I chipped it barely onto the green and it rolled all the way to the pin.”
Sieg shot 77 and 83, respectively, for the day which put him in a tie for 62nd place with a group of players that included two teammates, redshirt sophomore Matt Haase and sophomore Ryan Prickette.
A factor in the high scores Monday was the weather, with winds of 30-35 mph blowing throughout the day. No team shot under par and Jake Long of Missouri was the only individual player under par — he was 2-under.