Miller and Korte go two under, but Golf Govs lack depth

APSU Men’s Golf

Dickson, TN – Junior Drew Miller and sophomore Dustin Korte each shot two-under par and Austin Peay State University men’s golf team is in fifth with 18 holes to play at the 2011 Ohio Valley Conference Men’s Golf Tournament.

Jacksonville State is the runaway leader after 36 holes with a 15-under par 561. UT Martin is 18 strokes back with a three-over 579, along with Murray State at 580 and Eastern Kentucky at 582, ahead of Austin Peay’s two-round 585.
Tennessee Tech (591), Tennessee State (594), Eastern Illinois (596) and Morehead State (599) make up the rest of the field.

Second-round play was pushed back one hour, twenty minutes from the scheduled 7:30am start when thunderstorms pelted Dickson’s GreyStone Golf Club. Then after the first two groups got off the tee, a lightning delay took another thirty minutes. However, unlike during Monday’s first round, play resumed and was never halted again throughout the day.

After an opening-round 291, the Govs lost three strokes with a second-round 294. Austin Peay got a pair of 70s from Miller and Korte, a 75 from freshman Anthony Bradley and a pair of 79s from senior Luke Sherrod and freshman Marco Iten.

Miller played a fantastic round, with included three birdies, 14 pars and only one bogey. He opened the round with a birdie on No.1, made three pars and then birdied No. 5. Miller made the turn at two-under par and went to three-under with a birdie on No. 12 with a pair of well-played three-irons and a two-putt. It wasn’t until an errant tee shot on No. 18 led to his round’s only bogey.

“Drew had a real good round,” head coach Kirk Kayden said. “He had that one bogey at the end, but an otherwise clean round. Dustin played well also, we just needed two scores. Our par-5 scoring really hurt us. We have to be better with a wedge in the hand. We left a lot of birdies out there.”

Korte’s 70 looked great with all things considered. If there was one thing lacking from his game, Tuesday, it was consistency from hole-to-hole. On the front nine, he offset three bogeys with three birdies, while also making three pars. He improved to shoot two-under par on the back nine,making four birdies and only two bogeys – including a bogey on No. 18.

“We just didn’t get a good team effort today,” Kayden said. “Our freshmen struggled today, but Marco and Anthony both had good springs and I can’t fault them. We needed four consistent scorers and didn’t get.”

Final-round play is slated to begin at 8:30am, provided the predicted thunderstorms hold off. The Govs, who have a 9:20am scheduled tee time, are paired with fourth-place EKU and sixth-place Tennessee Tech.