• The KillerFrogs

TCU Golf 2020-2021

JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Pretty much a disaster from the get-go for TCU at Trinity Forest yesterday. Frogs took just 6 holes to go down 12 shots to playing partner SMU. A freshman blew up his card and an upperclassman took an 8 on a drivable par 4. And when the Frogs tweeted about their lone bright spot, Mateo F de O, being 2 off the tournament lead through 16, he immediately doubled 17.

Expecting to contend, the Frogs are T11, looking up at the likes of Abilene Christian, Lamar, and Florida Atlantic. Today they are paired with UTA and SMU's B team.

Seems like they didn't get much out of their practice round. New day today.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Much better round today for the TCU men, who improved by 10 shots while most other teams posted a higher score. Their +4 round was second-best of the day. They moved up to 6th place and are only 5 shots out of 2nd. They will be paired tomorrow with University of North Texas and Sam Houston, teams they are chasing.

Heading into the last round, there is no realistic chance to catch SMU for the team title, but there are individual opportunities. Mateo F de O is tied for 2nd at -1, three back of the leader. Gustav Frimodt is continuing his good form--he's T11 at +2.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
TCU men win their group for the second straight day and finish 4th at Trinity Forest. A good recovery, as the Frogs moved from 11th to 6th to 4th. They were never going to catch SMU, which must play a lot at TF--Ponies went 67-67-68-69 on the last day to win by 27. But TCU spotted the rest of the field too many shots on day one and ended up getting beat by UTSA and Little Rock as well.

UTSA did it with balance; UALR did it with a single standout performance. Their top player, Anton Albers, shot 64 to beat SMU's Noah Goodwin by one. It was the lowest round of the tournament by 3 shots.

TCU had two top-10 individual finishes. Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira finished solo 6th at -2, and Gustav Frimodt finished T7--his second straight finish in the top 12.

Men will be in action again next week in Austin; women play Friday in Arizona.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
TCU women are in action tomorrow and over the weekend in the Clover Cup at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, AZ.

This is a good field for TCU's skill level. Host Arizona State is the measuring-stick school as the clear favorite--23rd ranked amateur Olivia Mehaffey plays in the 4-spot for the Sun Devils. TCU is in the next tier with Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma and Clemson. Twelve schools are in the field; 4th or better would be a good outcome for the Frogs.

TCU is sticking with the same lineup it has fielded throughout the spring: Iqbal, Lau, Nguyen, Pacheco and Park. Grace Do will compete as an individual, which suggests that she will be in the lineup in two weeks at The Bruzzy Challenge in Argyle as a sub for Iqbal, who will be playing at the Augusta National Women's Amateur.

Rain and temps in 50s on Day 1; warming up over the weekend. Follow progress here: http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=22172
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Tom Hoge with a bogey-free 69 in the first round of the Players Championship. Included a birdie on 18, hardest hole on the course.

Back in the persimmon era, I had a chance to play the Stadium Course at Sawgrass. Unwisely played it from the back tees; spent the whole day hoping my drives would carry to the fairway. Dunked it 3x on 17. Still a great experience.
 
James Penny

James Penny

Active Member
JogginFrog said:
TCU women are in action tomorrow and over the weekend in the Clover Cup at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, AZ.

This is a good field for TCU's skill level. Host Arizona State is the measuring-stick school as the clear favorite--23rd ranked amateur Olivia Mehaffey plays in the 4-spot for the Sun Devils. TCU is in the next tier with Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma and Clemson. Twelve schools are in the field; 4th or better would be a good outcome for the Frogs.

TCU is sticking with the same lineup it has fielded throughout the spring: Iqbal, Lau, Nguyen, Pacheco and Park. Grace Do will compete as an individual, which suggests that she will be in the lineup in two weeks at The Bruzzy Challenge in Argyle as a sub for Iqbal, who will be playing at the Augusta National Women's Amateur.

Rain and temps in 50s on Day 1; warming up over the weekend. Follow progress here: http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=22172
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Joggin... Thanks for sharing this! I live in Phoenix but wouldn't have known about this tourney and the Frogs visit without your post.

I am going to take my daughter to watch some of the action this weekend.

Much appreciated!
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
James Penny said:
Joggin... Thanks for sharing this! I live in Phoenix but wouldn't have known about this tourney and the Frogs visit without your post.

I am going to take my daughter to watch some of the action this weekend.

Much appreciated!
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Outstanding. I'm sure the team will love having some support at a tourney far from home, especially from a Frog and his daughter! Would love to hear your (and her) take on what you see.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Rough day Friday for the TCU women--11th in a 12-team field. Not much to say other than too many 77s.

Frogs came to AZ early to have some spring break activities, and they probably also scouted NCAA tournament site Grayhawk, so it's possible they were a bit distracted. Didn't help that they were paired with last-place Cincinnati, so it may have seemed like they were playing better relative to the competition.

Anyway, two more days to improve.

Freshman Sabrina Nguyen was a bright spot with a 1-under 71 (T10). Based on her high school record, I thought she might take a while to develop into a starter, but she has become a mainstay in the lineup with a sub-75 stroke average and a pair of top-20 finishes.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Frog women finish 10th in Arizona. Some courses just don't fit your eye. The three desert schools finished at the top; after that I thought TCU would battle with Oklahoma, Clemson, and Houston. Those teams finished 4-5-6, with scores of +5 to +10. TCU came in at +31. Frogs will likely drop out of the top 30.

Freshman Lois Lau was a bright point for TCU; she shot a final-round 67 (her third of the season!) and finished T15 in a field with 10 players ranked top-100 nationally.

The tournament did have a dramatic finish. Arizona managed to hold off Arizona State for two days, and even when the Sun Devils went -7 on the front nine today, the Wildcats were a shot better. But Arizona got a little nervous coming in, and ASU rallied to win behind a 62 from Olivia Mehaffey. Starting 9 shots back, Mehaffey nearly took medalist honors too, but her teammate Linn Grant birdied the last to win by 1.

TCU men will be in action tomorrow and Tuesday in Austin at the George Hannon Collegiate. The event features a college-am fundraiser during today's practice round. Haven't seen an event like that before--anyone know if it's unusual?

Frogs will face most of its Big 12 rivals plus a handful of others. TCU will start an all-international lineup of F de O, Oleson, Celli, Laussot and Frimodt. Scoring here: http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=21270
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
TCU men post two decent rounds in Austin and are in 6th at the Hannon Collegiate at +8. All five players had at least one round of 73 or better.

With TCU's talent, I figure they shouldn't give up more than a shot a side, per counting score, to the top teams (8 shots per round). Today the Frogs didn't quite manage that--they are 21 back of Oklahoma and 19 back of Texas--both national title contenders. But they beat Baylor in both rounds, so there's satisfaction in that.

Individually, Mateo F de O shot 69 in the morning and Jacob Skov Oleson matched him in the afternoon. They are in the top 25 of a talented field, along with Filippo Celli. Great to see Celli with two good rounds after not posting a counting score in three trips around Trinity Forest last week. The freshman is talented, but college course set-ups take some getting used to.

Final round tomorrow.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Filippo Celli picked up the first career top-20 finish (T20) in Austin, but otherwise it was a forgettable final round for the Frogs. They shot +16, the second-worst score of the day. Thankfully, they dropped only from 6th to T7; had the result been 2 strokes worse, they would have tumbled to 11th.

In terms of rankings, though, placement is not as important as stroke totals. Golfstat rankings are based on team scoring margins relative to other teams in the field.

New rankings out yesterday have the women now at 41 and the men at 50. The rankings are still volatile due to little fall activity and teams playing mostly in region. The women dropped six places last week without playing because Baylor--which had won 5 straight tournaments in the southwest--crossed regions and finished in the bottom half of the field in South Carolina. The Frogs dropped 17 more spots based on their result in Arizona.

Placement in field is normally meaningful for overall record--teams must finish above .500 to gain eligibility for the NCAAs--but that rule has been suspended this year due to Covid.

Both the men's and women's teams should be solid NCAA squads, capable of advancing to nationals, despite no players currently ranking in the individual top 200 on either side. But both teams will need to perform better in the next few weeks; they are too close to the bubble for comfort.
 
F

flyfishingfrog

Active Member
froggolf65 said:
The 5 that played in Austin were all foreigners. Should never happen here.
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Guess you actually don’t pay attention to our golf team or haven’t for a decade since all of our best golfers have been from overseas and many from a common pool for quite a long time

Feel like everyone would like more local kids but we battle cheaper schools with better histories like UT, OSU, OU, Houston, ...

guessing Coach M would be happy if you want to allocate a scholarship fund to support the men’s golf program- but much like baseball and other men’s sports, scholarships are limited and the cost of attendance is high if you have to pay part or all your own way

you want to have a pep talk with the local guys about how they are letting you down?
 
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JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
It's not just TCU. There's a ton of international talent in college golf. Of the teams that beat or equaled TCU in Austin this week, all but UT and OU have at least 5 international players on their roster, and some have as many as 9.

Frogs have 8 domestic players on the roster, which is more than a lot of teams. But the 5 internationals have the 5 best scoring averages--and it hasn't been close. Their tournament finish percentages are all 42%+; the domestic players are all sub-30%. That's a big gap. So, like FlyFishing said, the Americans need to step up.

Of the domestic players, the one who has really performed in tournament play is Thomas Allkins, but he hasn't made a start since middle of last year. He may have battled injury; he doesn't always play in the qualifiers, but it has been good to see him posting scores recently.
 
JogginFrog

JogginFrog

Active Member
Coach Montigel appears to be tightening his lineup as the season gets later, reserving himself three selections for this week's tournament, The Goodwin, at Stanford Golf Club. Chris Berzina is among the two auto-qualifiers.

This will be Chris' fifth event of the year, which leads among the domestic players. He has been a consistently good final-round player, averaging +2 across stroke-play events. He has been terrible in second rounds, averaging +8.

Haven't yet seen a final field for The Goodwin, but it traditionally has been a large-field event, with 24 teams playing in morning and afternoon waves.
 

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