Men's Golfers In 14th In Louisiana

                LAFAYETTE, La. - The University of Colorado men's golf team struggled to acclimate itself to the different grasses in the south, and combined with an all-around bad start, never got much going in finding itself in 14th place after one round of the 20th Annual Louisiana Classics.

                Monday's afternoon round was washed out here due to thunderstorms, and was thus cancelled, shortening the tournament to 36 holes.  Tee times for the final round begin Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. (MST), with the forecast calling for clear skies.

                Tulsa emerged as the leader with a 4-under par 284 team score, good for a three stroke edge over SMU, whose 287 was the only other under par score posted by a team.  Colorado is in 14th with a 307 count; but trail several Big 12 and district rivals with just 18 holes left to make up anywhere from 9-to-15 strokes on them.

                The intermittent storms hit right in-between rounds.  "A couple of guys hit just one shot," CU head coach Mark Simpson said.  "They blew the horn at the first lightning bolt, we'd come in, wait it out, and there was no more lightning until we were ready to go out.  That happened three times and then they just called it.  It was a steady light rain and the course was definitely playable, but the lightning settled in over the area and it didn't want to budge."

                Junior Edward McGlasson led the Buffs with a 2-over 74, which included a 32 on the back nine; he is tied for 29th, but no other Buff cracked the top 40 in the 81-man field.  Junior Kenny Coakley managed a 3-over 75 (37-38), but Blake Moore, another junior, and true freshman Patrick Grady, mustered 79s and junior Derek O'Neill an 84.  Grady was ticketed for a redshirt year, but has been playing so well in qualifying rounds and in practice that Simpson made him eligible for the travel team.

                "The grasses were only a small part of our troubles," Simpson said.  "We made a lot of bad decisions, just one of those days where everything went wrong.  We got off to a collective bad start, and couldn't come back.  I think we were 20-under par in five or six holes, and played around even from that point on in.  But other than Edward improving 10 strokes between nines, no one else made a run to get any strokes back." 

                Missouri's Ben Scott held the individual lead after recording a pair of 34s on each nine for a 4-under par 68, good for a one shot lead over a trio of golfers.  Only 12 players bettered par Monday on the 7,002-yard, par 72 Oakbourne Country Club course, 

                "We seem to always have one bad round that we can't get out of our system," Simpson added.  "We hope to come back with a good round tomorrow and give it all we got; we're certainly not laying down, but it might not be enough to beat the teams we need to beat.  Tomorrow is an important round; how the guys react after this adversity is very important, and we want to build some momentum going into Stevinson Ranch (CU's invitational in California later this month)."

Buffalo Individuals

T29. Edward McGlasson.... 42-32--74

T42. Kenny Coakley....... 37-38--75

T68. Patrick Grady....... 42-37--79

T68. Blake Moore......... 40-39--79

T80. Derek O'Neill....... 44-40--84

Team Scores

 1. Tulsa.................. 284

 2. SMU.................... 287

 3. Kent State............. 291

 4. Kansas................. 292

 4. Texas Tech............. 292

 4. Missouri............... 292

 4. Louisville............. 292

 8. Texas State............ 293

 9. North Texas............ 294

10. Arkansas State......... 298

11. Rice................... 300

11. SE Louisiana........... 300

13. Louisiana-Lafayette.... 302

14. COLORADO............... 307

15. Houston................ 308